Kindled Fires
by baby-kitsune9
Summary: this is just something that randomly popped into my head.it starts out with their life on mars then later on will center around a mysterious half alien girl who is charlie's cousin and also the mystery rider.sort of inspired by episode seven.ThrottlexOC
1. Chapter 1

Throttle-

(*********************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************)

The bombs over head shook the very ground beneath their feet as they went off over the base. Yet that didn't frighten them anymore.

They had long grown out of being frightened by the bombs being fired at them. Just like they no longer feared the murderous lasers that were used to cleave through their bodies and kill be honest there was very little that they feared anymore aside from having what greenery that had once grown on their planet; and in some areas still did. Die or disappear like the rest had.

Because when that happened, they would_ truly_ be lost.

He walked down the corridors to his bunker, the metal floors making a soft clicking noise under his feet. The only time he made noise was when he was walking these halls. Every other time he walked, he moved far too stealthily for anyone or anything to hear him.

Some of his comrades likened him to a ghost. Randomly disappearing and reappearing as he wanted.

Like today for instance-

He had disappeared behind enemy lines and taken out several key points in the enemy base while collecting some of the once plentiful plant life. He'd gathered as many flowers as he could without making them a hindrance and had then slipped back into safer territory with his prize so that he could take them to his lover.

Whom he had left in his bunker, gloriously naked and sound asleep.

Hopefully she wouldn't be too pissed with him. After all it wasn't often that he risked life and limb to get flowers for her. But then again, everyday wasn't as special as today to him.

No. Today was the anniversary of the day he and his lover had gotten together. And he for one had wanted to give her something special even if she couldn't give him much in return. That was why he had gotten the flowers.

They were the moon flowers that had once grown in abundance all over the planet. The flowers that the males of his kind got for their special females, to show the depth of their feelings for them. The flowers symbolized unity even in hopelessness.

He paused outside of his bunker door and glanced down at the moon flowers silvery, opalescent, petals and lightly ran one of his fingers along one of the petals, marveling at the softness of the flower for a moment before sucking in a nervous breath and opening the door and stepping in then closing it again when he saw his lover standing with her back to him.

Her long ink black hair hung down her back nearly to her slender waist as she finished buckling her belt and reached for her shirt when he finally moved away from the door and leaned over her back a little bit and placed the flowers on his bed, where she could see them then straitened his spine and waited for her to say something as he settled his gloved hands on her hips. "Are these-" She started to ask.

"They are." He said in a rough sounding amused tone.

"They're beautiful-"

"I should hope so." He doubted that he would have risked his life for something hideously ugly.

She by passed her shirt and picked the flowers up and counted them. Their were nine in all. The same number of years that she and her lover had been together. "Oh Throttle... they're wonderful." She said in an awed tone.

He smiled, though she couldn't see it and wrapped his arms around her middle and rested his chin on her shoulder wanting to memorize this moment of contentment for all the rest of his days as she leaned her head to the side, brushing her cheek against his own for a second before laying the flowers back down and picking up her shirt.

"Do you really have to go?" He asked, trying to keep the worry out of his tone. He knew how much it annoyed her when he worried about her. But he couldn't help it. With the war going on outside and the dangers one faced in the field, he'd much rather have her here in his bunker at all times where he knew she would be _safe_.

Where he could protect her.

Was it so wrong of him to want this?

She slipped her arms through her sleeves and turned to face him, her gray eyes studying him. "We've been over this before Throttle. I can't _stay_ here. And you worry too much." He stepped back a little bit to give her some space and said nothing, though he wanted to argue.

He was a male, dammit, it was his job to worry about and protect _his_ female.

She thought he worried too much. But frankly he didn't think he worried enough.

But he wouldn't really grasp the concept of worrying too much until several days later. He and his lover parted ways like they always did. A small argument, ended by a desperate kiss and a few whispered words of affection.

He was coming out of his bunker for his shift in the trenches when he heard a buzzing sound among a group that had gathered just down the hall. Curious about the obvious breach in normal protocol ( never stand in the hallways, the hallways needed to be clear in case one of the bombs overhead managed to destroy one of the labs and the highly flammable contents within them) he walked over to the group and listened for a second to what his comrades were talking about in hushed tones.

"Did you hear about general Carbine?" One guy whispered to another. Throttle's ears twitched and he tilted his head closer to the ones speaking while the others crowded around them.

"No. What about her?"

"Well, don't tell anyone but general Carbine was captured by the enemy three days ago when she went in for her shift and-" Throttle's heart stuttered in his chest and he saw red. _Oh no-_ He had known that he shouldn't let Carbine out of his sight, yet had hadn't wanted to make her a prisoner. He had known that doing so would kill whatever love she had for him and drive a wedge between them.

_Well no more._

He thought as he shoved his way through the fools then scattered the gossip mongers with a scathing remark about their lack of brains and ran down the hall to the hanger intent to grab his bike and whatever weapons he may need to go rescue Carbine but was stopped by her uncle before he could get to the hanger.

Carbine's uncle was one of the top strategists they had. The great general Stoker stood before the door to the hanger with several armed guards, seemingly waiting for something. Throttle froze, his mind going blank with terror.

He'd seen Stoker deliver bad news to families and lovers of fallen soldiers, he'd just never expected to have the man tell him that someone he loved was now gone forever. He waited, hoping against hope that Stoker wasn't waiting for him and sank to his knees in shock and disbelief when the man looked at him with sad blue eyes and said gently. "I'm so sorry Throttle-"


	2. Chapter 2

Modo-

(*********************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************)

He spent his day in the trenches under heavy laser fire. From the moment he got up in the morning until he went to bed at night, the trenches were his home. His reality.

He lived and in the future he would die here, just like so many others before him. Trying to cut down as many enemies as he could before they could cut him down. He heard a scream and ducked his head back down as one of his companions jumped up and peeked out over the top of the ditch that they were pinned in and an instant later half of his head was blown off, spattering his blood and other bodily fluids on Modo's face and clothes.

The gray furred alien made a sound of annoyance and grabbed the twitching dead body, silently cursing the newbie, and jerked the body back down out of the way. They would use it later as a shield to make sure that the ones killed today were avenged.

He checked the clip in his gun, making sure that the crystals that created the lasers that killed the ones firing at them, hadn't been destroyed or damaged. He did it out of habit. Even though he knew that the crystals were damn near indestructible. Yet the action of checking them was soothing to him.

He popped the clip back in the gun and was about to start shooting again when he heard several of his other companions hiss and swear violently, earning a curious look from him before someone jerked back their gun and snarled, "Mother fucker-"

As someone else bit out a disbelieving, "Is that a kid?"

Modo blinked. Just a little bit stunned at what he had just heard and peeked up over the top of the ditch. Sure enough, there was a crying kid wandering around in between the ditch and the boulders hiding their enemies. "Oh shit." Modo muttered as he saw one of the Plutarkians come up over the top of a rock and take a shot at the kid.

Rage simmered in his blood as the child screamed in fear and fell. Exciting the others to join in the fun and to take a few shots at him.

Modo growled._ Those low life bastards!_ He grabbed the body of the dead newbie and hefted it up onto one of his shoulders and picked up a smaller gun, one intended for close range shooting and before anyone could react or think to stop him, he jumped up out of the ditch and ran like crazy. Making sure to zig zag here and there so that the enemy wouldn't be able to get him so easily.

The plutarkians open fired on him, but couldn't reach him through the corpse he carried on his shoulder.

He stopped just next to the kid and set the corpse down and returned fire. Managing to get off six shots before the guys in the ditch finally grasped what he was trying to do and started to give him cover fire, driving the enemy back behind their rocks so that he could grab the kid and start back to the ditch.

He was just a few feet from safety when one of the plutarkians came up from out of hiding and fired three times at Modo's back. The first two missed.

The third didn't.

The laser cleaved through the soft tissue, and muscle in his arm, causing him to stumble as his arm fell to the ground and a white hot wave of agony nearly brought him to his knees. _Nearly_ being the operative word.

He caught himself before he could go down, the sobbing child holding onto him became the main focus of his mind, driving back all thought of the pain where his arm used to be or the blood gushing down his side, staining his shirt.

He gritted his teeth and threw himself the last few feet, damn near taking off the head of one unfortunate guy who had popped up only long enough to scream in alarm when he saw Modo coming right at him, a second later the gray alien crashed to the bottom of the ditch with the kid still tightly grasped in his one remaining hand and gave himself up to the impending darkness as several medics came running to help him.


	3. Chapter 3

Vinny-

(*********************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************)

He wasn't as stupid as he pretended to be. Not that anyone ever noticed. They had a bad tendency to see only what they wanted to see. He knew this because he had taken the exam_ five_ times already. And each time he took the exam he scored higher and higher, his score inevitably surpassing that of general Stoker.

And every time he was pulled aside and accused of cheating.

As if there was no way that there could be more to him than what meets the eye. God grown ups were such simpletons sometimes. Even his own mother and father believed him to be cheating, and they had known him since birth.

Not that he minded all that much, being underestimated made things simpler for him.

He could do his job without hindrance, or distraction. Without being seen.

Yes, he liked things this way. He doubted that he would know what to do if anyone ever figured him out. He probably wouldn't be able to function as himself if anyone found him out. He would be too nervous. He would hesitate more.

And that could cost someone dearly.

Yet he could recall the day that someone had sort of noticed him. It was when he was sixteen and new to the armed forces that defended their people. He had thought that he was alone in the cafeteria, but obviously he had been wrong.

He had been sitting alone, playing a game similar to chess with himself. It was something that he did out of habit to keep his mind sharp. He was just three moves away from beating himself when someone walked up and moved one of the opposite pieces for him, startling him slightly as he had twisted around in his seat and looked at the one who had moved his piece.

The guy behind him was tall, not as tall as that damn gray giant with the metal arm. But he was still taller than anyone else that Vinny had ever seen. The guy had soft brown fur, and scarlet eyes, with an earring in one ear. He was decked out in black pants a vest and fingerless gloves.

Vinny stared at him for a moment before he remembered what the guy had done to his piece and then glared at him. The guy looked at him and made a motion for him to turn back around, and Vinny almost growled at him.

Just what the hell did this guy think he was-

He looked at the piece that the guy had moved and felt his jaw drop a little bit for a second. Holy shit- He was being challenged!

Excitement warred with nervousness and in the end his excitement won out over common sense. He moved his other piece and blinked when the other guy reached over his shoulder and toppled his piece with his pilfered one then handed them both to Vinny and grinned at him. "Game."

Vinny made a choking sound as the guy started to walk away. He'd never been beaten before. This was just so un-_fucking_-believable that he couldn't just sit there and let it slide. He was up out of his seat in a flash and grasped the older guy's arm and pulled him to a stop. Earning a curious look from the guy. "Something wrong kid?" The guy asked.

Vinny nearly hissed at him, his fur stood on end. "I want a rematch." He said after a second or so. The guy cocked his head and seemed to think his request over then shrugged.

"Alright brat, but I'm just going to kick your ass again."

Vinny scoffed.

Ten minutes later, he'd lost again.

That was when he realized that everyone hide something.

Three years and eleven months later he was placed on a new team with that giant Modo and...

His current team leader, Throttle, who still kicked his ass at chess every evening before bed.

The bastard.


	4. Chapter 4

I think that was enough of an intro.

Don't you?

Okay here is where the real story begins. five years after the first three chapters.

The guys have been on earth for several months.

(*********************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************)

_Charlie sat outside the school in her uniform waiting for her little cousin Shara to show up. It was summer, and though they had no school for the next month or so she hadn't been able to resist putting on her uniform for this little endeavor since it was easier to move around in for her. _

_Besides it wasn't like she would be actively participating in the fight tonight. No. She was there to attend the wounded with her nifty first aid kid and limited medical knowledge. _

_Hopefully no one would bring a gun this time. But even if someone did out of pure meanness and stupidity she wasn't worried. Shara wouldn't let anything happen to her or the others. She heard the rumbling purr of a motorcycle and glanced to her left at the sleek silvery white bike that pulled up, and smiled at it's rider as she reached up and pulled off her helmet revealing the angelic/fairy princess features of her younger cousin Shara. _

_"Yo." Shara said in her usual fashion as she pushed some of her silvery blond mid back length hair back away from her face and gave Charlie a once over with her peculiar neon pink/lavender colored eyes._

_"Whoa, Charlie my love you look hot." Shara said in a teasing tone. Charlie rolled her eyes and smiled at her cousin. _

_"If the next few words out of your mouth are, Take your clothes off and cool down; the gang will be without a leader." Charlie cautioned Shara. The blond gave her an amused look. _

_"I wouldn't say that-" Even if it sounded like something she would usually say to Charlie. She still wouldn't say it because her older cousin just might kill her. "I am wondering if your wearing panties though-Ow!" Shara yelped as Charlie's fist connected with her upper arm. _

_"Dammit that hurt." Shara growled as Charlie folded her arms over her chest and stared down at her. _

_"No it didn't." _

_"Oh? And I suppose you would know this because your phychic or something?" _

_"No. I just know it would take a lot more than that to really hurt you-" Charlie said as she unfolded her arms and brushed Shara's bangs back from her forehead so that she could trace the lavender purple nine point star shaped scar on her cousin's forehead from where she had been shot in the head at point blank range, by her own father a year after her mother's death. "Sort of like it will take more than a bullet to splatter your brains across the pavement." _

_Shara lightly smacked her hand away from her forehead. All good humor suddenly gone from her expression as she recalled the night her father had gone crazy and walked up to her and shot her in the head thinking that it would kill her. _

_It hadn't. It had only stunned her enough to make her go totally limp and look dead. Which was probably why she had woken up in a dumpster wrapped in a bloody tarp with a headache from hell before she managed to untangle herself from the tarp and climbed out of the dumpster and had walked five miles to Charlie's house wondering how she was going to explain her sudden need to spend the next few years in her uncle and aunt's home. _

_Luckily they hadn't heard about what her father had done until her father had called them to tell them that someone had broken into the house and killed her. Trapping himself in his own lie since she was alive and well and pissed off enough to finger him for what he had done. _

_"I'm sorry Shara, that was insensitive of me." Charlie said as she studied Shara's blank apathetic expression as she looked at her. _

_"No big Charlie." Shara said, knowing that her cousin hadn't said what she had said to be cruel. She had merely been pointing out a fact that Shara herself sometimes forgot. Or maybe it was simply that she didn't like being reminded of it. _

_It was hard to say. _

_"How much longer until the others get here?" _

_Charile looked at the watch on her right wrist. Noting that it was just before sun down. "Not long. Another ten minutes maybe." Shara made a humming sound. _

_"Awesome. I'll start doing a weapon's check."_

_(**********************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************)_

_Charlie ducked down behind a metal barrel as gun shots were fired in all directions. She screamed as the bullet ricocheted dangerously close to her, hitting the wall just above her hiding place before bouncing off of a metal beam and thudding into the soft tissues in Blane's leg. _

_He screamed in pain and fell just shy of the place where three of the others were hiding. "Blane!" Tina cried as Mark swore violently then pushed her back and shrugged off his jacket and thrust it into her arms and hissed. _

_"Stay here." As he moved out from behind the safety of the wood pile and ran over to Blane and grabbed his arm and dragged him to safety as more shots were fired. _

_"Countdown!" Shara yelled, reminding them that she was still there and she needed to know that all of them were alright. The countdown system told her who was there and who wasn't. They did a head check every time they all went out together and did another every time someone got hurt. _

_"One." _

_"Two." _

_"Three-" Blane gasped as Tina and Mark tried to stop the bleeding._

_"Four!" Christophe called from the far side of the building, making all of them wonder what the hell he was doing way over there while they were way, over here getting shot at. _

_"F-Five..." Drea called weakly, her voice shaking. _

_"Si-" Charlie started to call out when she felt something cold and metal press against the nape of her neck and heard a low gravely voice say. _

_"Not for long." There was an audible click, and her breath came out in a low frightened, keening sound an instant before she heard Shara calling her name._

_(***************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************0_

Charlie woke up screaming as something loud made a banging sound from just down the hall from her room. An instant later the sound of three sets of heavy feet pounding against the tile floor of her hall way, heading towards her room echoed in her ears. And still she couldn't stop screaming.

Even when her bedroom door was kicked open and her three friends rushed into the room and tried to calm her down, she couldn't stop screaming.


	5. Chapter 5

Charlie's screams had died down to whimpers as Modo rocked her back and forth, the fingers of his mechanical hand gently brushing her dark hair back as she buried her face against his chest and trembled violently while Vinny and Throttle sat on either side of Modo trying to figure out what had caused their human to freak out like this. Unsure of what to do but just sit there and wait for Charlie to calm down.

It took much longer than it should have but finally Charlie was able to calm herself down and awkwardly pushed against Modo's chest and looked around the room, looking for something that only she seemed to know of as she rubbed the nape of her neck with one slightly shaky hand, her face still pale and frightened.

"Charlie girl?"

Charlie blinked and looked at Throttle as if she just seemed to notice that he and his bros were in the room. "Throttle?" She blinked again and looked over at Modo and Vinny as if she hadn't noticed that they were sitting on her bed either then looked around the room again as Modo put his mechanical hand against her cheek, causing her to jump a little bit before she looked at him again and frowned.

"What are you guys doing in here?" She asked in a confused/ shell shocked tone. Her expression mirroring her thoughts.

"You screamed." Vinny said plainly.

Charlie frowned at him. Confusion etched into her features. "I did?"

"Yes." Modo said sagely.

"Very loudly." Vinny said soberly.

"Many times." Throttle said as he crossed his arms over his chest and stared at her hard, waiting to see what she might say next since she obviously didn't remember screaming.

"Oh... I'm sorry." Charlie said, unsure of what else to say. She knew that she must have really scared her friends. Otherwise they wouldn't be sitting in her room on her bed with worried/murderous expressions on their faces.

"No problem Charlie girl. We're just happy that your okay." Throttle said with a tight lipped smile as he stood up and leaned down a little bit and kissed her cheek then walked back across the room to the door before calling for his bros, both of whom muttered some weird excuses to her and followed Throttle out the door then gently closed it behind them.

(*********************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************)

"What the hell was that all about?" Vinny asked in an irritated tone as soon as the door was firmly closed behind him.

"Dunno." Modo said quietly as Throttle rested his back against the wall across from them, with his arms folded over his chest again. A thoughtful expression on his face. He didn't know what to think of Charlie's actions earlier, or to the _confusion_ she had shown them when they tried to clue her in on what had happened. All he knew was that something was off with their favorite girl and they needed to keep an eye on her.

"Throttle. What are we gonna do?"

"We're going to keep an eye on her. If she goes anywhere, we follow. If she talks to anyone we've never met or talked too before, we listen. One way or another, we'll find out whats bothering her." Throttle said as he pushed away from the wall and walked down the hall to the living room and planted himself in his favorite chair, so that he would look less suspicious when Charlie girl finally came out of her room and started to go about her daily tasks.

(*********************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************)

Charlie felt a little better when she came out of the shower a little while later. Her mind was clearer, and she no longer felt scared. She walked over to her bed and sighed as she sat down on it in nothing but a fluffy red towel and glanced over at her phone.

Wondering if she should call Shara and see if they could meet somewhere and maybe talk for a while. God knew that they needed to take the time out to reconnect after spending so many years apart.

Charlie could still remember Shara's words as she had walked out of the garage all those years ago after they had buried their friend Mark whom had been targeted by a rival gang after their territory. Charlie could remember her cousin coming up behind her and slipping her bandaged hands around her waist and laying her head in between Charlie's shoulders and saying.

_"This was my fault. I shouldn't have looked away-"_

Charlie had been puzzled over Shara's cryptic words at first. Wondering what she had meant about Mark's death being her fault because she had looked away.

Then Shara had said the most painful thing that Charlie had ever heard her say. She was leaving. Abandoning her family and what was left of her friends. She disbanded the gang that she had put together and given them one last order.

Live your dreams.

After that she had packed up her things and came by the garage and surprised Charlie with a visit. They had sat up all night talking and joking around and Shara had even spent the night at the garage with Charlie. And the next morning when she had woken up, Shara had been gone.

She had chosen to leave without saying goodbye and had left a small scrap of paper with a number on it and a little pink cell phone on the pillow next to her head. Charlie had lost the cell phone, but she had managed to hold onto the piece of paper.

And right now she was really longing to call her cousin up and ask her to come home even if it was just for the day.

Reaching out and she grasped the phone and dialed the number that her cousin had left for her and waited while the phone rang. Charlie's heart thudded in her chest as the phone rang two times, then three. Quickly followed by four before there was a soft clicking sound from the other end followed by a cheerful.

"_Yo babe. You lost the phone didn't you?_"

Charlie made a half sobbing half laughing sound. God it was so nice to hear Shara's voice again after all these years. "Yeah. Sorry." Charlie finally said after a second or so.

Shara made a humming sound, her voice tinged with amusement. "_No problem babe. I'll bring you a new one_. _Meet me at the bar down the street in, lets say twenty minutes_."

"O-Oh. Okay." Charlie said in a slightly bewildered tone as the line went dead.


	6. Chapter 6

Throttle, Modo, and Vinny were sitting in the living room pretending to watch TV when Charlie walked into the living room door dressed in a pair of soft blue jeans, and a pale green shirt. "Charlie-" Vinny said happily, jumping out of his seat so that he could hug her. She gave him a bemused smile.

She looked like she was back to normal. She was even smiling like she was back to normal.

But Throttle didn't buy her act.

He knew the way the woman's mind worked far too well to buy her, I'm-good-now act any. Besides, he could still see the faintest traces of her lingering fear in her features. Obviously Vinny could see it too or he wouldn't be trying to irritate the woman in an effort to try and get her to box his ears like she usually did.

However Charlie didn't seem to want to play with him any, she grabbed a pair of shoes that she kept hidden behind the living room curtain and slipped them on. "You going somewhere Charlie?"

"I'm...going to see a friend. And I'm not sure how long I'll be gone-" Throttle's ears twitched a little bit as he tracked the woman's movements around the room. She kept fidgeting with one of her shirt sleeves and rubbing her palms on the upper legs of her pants. Indicating nervousness.

"Have we met this friend of yours before?" Modo asked casually trying to keep his tone light and neutral despite his curiosity.

Charlie looked out the window, then glanced at them. "What? No. No you guys have never met."

"Should we meet?" Vinny asked, as his tail thrashed around a little bit in irritation. Apparently he didn't like the idea of some guy that they had never met sniffing around their little gal pal anymore than the rest of them did.

"No. No. No. No. No. No. I don't want you guys to meet-" Charlie said as she shook her head no. She would rather keep_ both_ of her personal lives separate. Especially since Shara might not like the fact that she had three huge alien _men_ living with her.

She might get territorial and stomp their asses into the ground or something in a misguided attempt to protect Charlie's honor. She started to walk by them but was pulled to a stop by Modo when his tail wrapped around her wrist, effectively stopping her in her tracks. "Charlie ma'am, why do you seem so nervous? Is there a particular _reason_ why you don't want us to meet your friend?"

Charlie looked uncomfortable as she tried to pry his tail out from around her wrist. But Modo refused to let her untangle herself. Her expression slightly panicked. She had less than ten minutes to meet Shara at the bar down the street, and it would take at least another fifteen for her to convince Modo and the others to let her go.

And if she knew Shara half as well as she thought she did...she would come to the garage looking for her.

And that was a very, very, _very_ bad thing since she would probably be in a murderous rage.

One didn't keep Shara waiting. _Ever_.

She commanded more respect from her friends and former gang members than that. "No! There's no reason. I just don't want the four of you fighting. _Now will you please let go!_" Charlie said in a panicked tone as she tried pulling on her arm. She had seven minutes left before her precious baby cousin came looking for her.

She had such a frightened look on her face that Modo couldn't resist grasping her wrist in his hand and pulling her into his lap despite the fact that she was struggling to free herself. Finally after a few minutes, she swore then went limp and lay against Modo's chest with a frightened/horrified look on her face.

_Oh god her boys were asking for trouble. _

"You three need to leave..." Charlie said after a moment or so as she tried to control the urge to hyperventilate. _Shara. _She'd be here soon looking for Charlie and if the guys were still there they might get hurt...badly. "Like right now. Just walk out the door and don't come back for a few hours-" Charlie started to babble, unaware of Throttle and Vinny got to their feet and walked over to where Modo was and leaned down so that they could see her face.

_"Breathe_ sweetheart." Vinny ordered her as he ran his knuckles along the curve of her cheek as he stared at the frightened look on her pale face. He didn't know who the hell this guy that Charlie had been supposed to meet was. But it was apparent that she was absolutely terrified of him.

Which made the martian think that maybe Charlie was friends with someone who liked to knock her around, although she seemed a bit too smart to put up with something like that._ Whoever this guy is, he isn't getting close to Charlie again._

Vinny would give the son of a bitch a one way ticket strait to hell if he got close to their _human_.

Throttle must have been thinking the same thing though his expression remained blank. "Don't you worry any baby doll, we'll make sure to give your friend a good stern talking too." _After we break something important off of him. _Throttle thought darkly as he ran his fingers through Charlie's dark hair and stiffened slightly when the phone rang.

Charlie made a funny little choking sound and stared at the phone wide eyed. "Is that your friend?" Throttle asked curiously as he glanced down at Charlie. She didn't answer. She just made another choking sound and quickly buried her face against Modo's shoulder and let the gray alien hug her tightly as Throttle walked over to the small coffee table where the phone was and picked up the receiver.

"Last Chance Garage. Who's calling?" Throttle answered in his most casual tone.

"_Where is Charlene?_" Demanded the soft, husky, smokers voice from the other end. Throttle blinked behind his shades and cocked his head to the side and frowned. He hadn't expected the person on the other end to be so strait to the point.

Nor could he completely block out the _concern_ that he had detected in that husky voice. Concern was not exactly what one would expect from someone who terrified their friends.

"She's a little tied up right now-"

"_Unhurt?_" Came the curt demand from the other end.

Throttle grinned in amusement as he detected a note of tightly leashed anger in the voice now. "Of course she's unhurt. We're gentlemen after all." He replied as he looked over at Charlie as a low mean sounding growl sounded from the person on the other end of the line.

"_Of course you are-_" Came the slightly angry, and bitter reply followed by a threat. "_But just so you know baby boy, you and you're boyfriends are dead if I see so much as a hair on her head out of place..." _Throttle opened his mouth to respond to the threat but the line went dead before he could say anything.

(****************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************)

Shara flipped her phone closed and stared up at the garage she and Charlie had grown up playing in, through narrowed eyes. _Charlie._ Her cousin. Her friend. Her second in command and partner in crime. She hadn't seen her in years.

It felt like forever since she had so much as heard her voice. And god knew that she had_ longed_ to hear that precious voice these last few months since returning to town. But she had been busy restarting her life here in Chicago for the third time in her life.

Busy finding a place to live. Starting a business.

And then there was the shit she did at night, when everyone in the city slept.

She patrolled the streets. Looking for gangs, drug lords; people that shouldn't be allowed on the streets. People who ruined the lives of the _innocent_. And she dealt with them.

Which was part of the reason that she hadn't called Charlie since coming back. Things had been hectic and she hadn't wanted to drag her cousin into anything like what she had when they had been teens. Though she knew that Charlie would stay with her if she asked her too, she doubted that she would have liked being dragged into anymore fights regardless of the circumstances.

But now that things had quieted down a bit, and the streets were a little safer, she had felt it was finally time to call her cousin and catch up. She'd been looking forward to revisiting her old stomping grounds with her cousin and catching up on all the news that was news.

And now...

Now some asshole and his buddies had her cousin and she didn't know if they were just friends or if they were thugs. The guy that had picked up the phone had said that Charlie was 'tied up' so she was leaning more towards _thugs_ than _friends_.

And they were foolishly trying to keep her cousin from her.

She'd have to hurt them for that. But first thing was first.

She needed to deal with their wheels. The three sleek beauties parked on the side walk next to the garage. She climbed off of her bike and reached down into her left boot and pulled out a four inch jagged double edge blade and walked up to the bikes and very boldly slashed the front tire on the first one then the other two before kicking them over and setting off the alarms.

She gave a grim smile and slipped around the back of the building as the alarms blared like sirens. Announcing her presence as she grabbed her bike and hid it around the back of the building out of the way and started for the back door.


	7. Chapter 7

"That sounds like Lady." Throttle said as he hung up the phone. His ears twitched as he heard the loud almost panicked blare of his bikes alarm mixed in with Lil' Hoss and Vinny's bike. Vinny straitened his spine and moved over to the window and moved the curtains aside and peeked out at their bikes. All of which were laying on their sides, their handle bars tangled together.

"Fuck, our bikes have been knocked over." Vinny said as he turned away from the window and started to cross the room. Throttle looked at Modo and motioned for him to put Charlie down and go with Vinny to check on their bikes since they had no way of knowing what had caused their babies to fall over and start making a fuss.

Modo stood up with Charlie still cradled in his arms and gently set her down in the chair that he had been sitting in and ran out of the room to see if his bike was okay. Leaving Throttle in the room to guard Charlie just in case.

(**************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************)

Shara managed to pick the lock on the back door with ease and had slipped into Charlie's apartment and hidden herself in her cousin's bedroom to wait and nearly laughed when two large men all but ran out of the living room and down the hall to the front door.

Which meant that their friend; lucky number three, must be in the living room with Charlie.

Not a problem. She'd knock his ass out and grab her girl and get out before they knew what hit them.

(**************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************)

Throttle stood at the window watching his bros fuss over their bikes and frowned when he noted the anger and frustration in their body language. Something must have damaged their bikes. Or maybe someone would be more accurate.

He glanced over his shoulder at Charlie and noted that she hadn't moved from where Modo had put her.

He looked back out the window and closed his eyes for a second and focused his mind on certain things. The sounds of the apartment. The soft drip of the leaky faucet in the bathroom, the creak of the floor under his feet when he shifted his weight from foot to foot.

Then there was the nearly silent and stealthy movements that he could hear behind him-

His eyes opened and he remained perfectly still, waiting for the attack that he could sense was coming. He kept his tail down and out of sight, coiling it around one of his legs to keep it from being seen just in case he needed an ace in the hole and dropped his hands to his sides and turned when the coffee table was kicked across the floor at his legs. And side stepped it as it crashed into the wall where he had been standing.

And was about to rush the person standing there and stopped cold when he saw that the person who terrified Charlie, had his favorite human in his grasp.

Throttle made a low growling sound as his eyes flickered to Charlie. She looked pale, and wide eyed but other wise fine. Which was why this guy in front of him was still _breathing_ right now.

Well, that and the fact that Throttle had yet to get his hands on the son of a bitch.

He narrowed his eyes behind his shades and stared at the guy, sizing him up. He wore a helmet, making it hard to see anything of his face.

He was about five foot six. A lot smaller than Throttle's impressive six foot eight.

He was wearing a baggy leather jacket, and skin tight black jeans. The baggy jacket made it hard to determine his weight and build, but if his legs were anything to go by, the guy was lean with very little muscle to make this a very long or interesting fight. Which meant that he must be smart.

Or at least gave the impression that he was to the martian.

Because if he was smart then he wouldn't engage in a fight that could mess him up. He wouldn't chance it if he had come for Charlie. No, he was much more likely to make a threat knowing that Throttle wouldn't know enough about him to know if he was bluffing or not.

Which mean that he was probably banking on the hope that Charlie hadn't mentioned that they were friends. _Well too bad there-_ Throttle thought as he unwound his tail from around his leg and let it thrash behind him in irritation.

Shara couldn't believe her eyes. In all her life she had only seen one person who had looked like the man in front of her. And that person had been her late mother.

She felt a shiver work it's way down her spine and glanced at Charlie out of the corner of her eye and thought. _Dear god this is awkward._ She had stupidly walked into this familiar place wanting to pick a fight, and had blindly and foolishly pissed off one of the males of her _alien_ race.

She was under no illusions. She was probably going to die for this.

"_Psst. Charlie. Act like I have a gun pressed against your back._" Shara hissed at her cousin. Charlie must have heard her as she shifted her hold on her. She stiffened and then squeaked and looked very afraid.

Something that obviously pissed the male off even more if the mad thrashing of his tail was any indication at all.

Again. She was under _no_ illusions. She was_ probably_ going to die for this...

"Let Charlie go asshole-" The male growled at her and she felt the insane need to laugh hysterically and say something along the lines of, 'It speaks!' But instead said.

"I wish I could..." But she was smart enough to know that if she did and Charlie moved away from her the male would kill her before he realized that she wasn't really a threat. Well okay, that was sort of a lie. She was a threat, just not a conventional one. And certainly not a very big one to someone like the alien glaring at her.

She could see the big guys fingers flexing, opening and closing with his barely suppressed need to rip her head off. "_Oh my frigging god Charlie- Why didn't you warn me about this guy?_" Shara hissed at her cousin as she took a cautious step back, pulling Charlie with her and stopped when she heard the heavy sound of two pairs of feet.

_C-r-a-p._

The other two were coming back. Charlie made a humming sound. Knowing that Vinny and Modo would be right behind them in a second and she was probably going to get yelled at if Shara survived this. Especially since she hadn't warned her little cousin about the other two guys.

But then, Shara should have known that the other two would be back soon. So why hadn't they left yet? "Throttle! Some sorry bastard slit our front tires with a knife then kicked the bikes over!"

Throttle growled loudly as his tail thrashed around a little more and he called out. "I know!" Because he was looking at the 'sorry bastard'.

He heard Vinny and Modo muttering and swearing as they walked towards the living room and cast a look of sadistic glee at the guy holding onto Charlie. It wouldn't be much longer and the fucker would be trapped.

Shara rolled her eyes behind her visor and sighed then growled. "_Three alien males. Really Charlie?_"

"Don't blame me for this." Charlie said in a hushed tone.

"_But I am blaming you for this. I'm blaming you for all of it. Don't you think you should have told me about this shit? Maybe warned me not to piss the huge alien man and his buddies off._" Shara growled, her voice raising a little bit in irritation, enough for Throttle to pick up what she was saying as Vinny and Modo finally showed up and paused in the hall way just outside the living room with shocked looks on their faces before they took up a sort of formation on either side of the door behind her and drew their weapons.

"Who's this joker?" Vinny asked curiously.

"He the punk that messed with our bikes."

"He's the dead man with his hands on Charlie girl." Throttle growled as his shades slipped down his nose a little bit, revealing angry scarlet eyes.

Shara had to fight the urge to throw her hands in the air and surrender. Honestly, what the hell was she supposed to do now? If she fought them, she'd probably lose a limb or two before they killed her.

And she probably wouldn't do much damage to them at all considering her size and build. _Damn dad for not wanting a son. _Shara thought darkly as she made a frustrated sound and let go of her cousin and quickly pushed her out of the way and braced herself as the male in front of her charged forward as his white friend grabbed her cousin and jerked her out of harms way as 'Throttle?' tackled her._  
><em>


	8. Chapter 8

The two went down hard, the heavy weight of the male's body hitting her, knocked the breath out of her before she felt his fist connect with her helmet, jerking her head to the side so violently that it felt as if her spine had just been damaged.

Not that it stopped her from balling her hand into a fist and catching the male under the chin with her fist in a vicious upper cut that caused his head to snap back on his spine before he let out a loud blood chilling growl and bared his teeth at her in a terrifying parody of a smile before he started hitting her again.

He hit her a grand total of four times before she finally managed to free one of her legs and kicked him in the side of the head. He yelped and rolled off of her and sat on the floor for a second shaking his head as she scrambled across the floor and staggered to her feet and had just barely turned herself around to face him when he got up and came at her again.

_Oh I could cheerfully kill you for this Charlie-_ She thought as she caught the wrist of the hand that shot out to hit her and ducked under his arm and brought her elbow up and slammed it into his jaw before he jerked his wrist free and grabbed her in a tight bear hug like move and started squeezing, slowly trying to break her bones and cause her internal organs to rupture.

She gasped for breath and thrashed in his arms, trying to get a clear shot of him with her legs but the moment she got close he wrapped his tail around her legs and squeezed harder. It was agonizing. More agonizing than the time her father had shot her.

Probably because the pain wasn't centered in just one place but was instead felt all over. She was vaguely aware of seeing Charlie fighting to get free from the white furred alien's grasp, screaming. Her expression horrified. Her voice hysterically begging the alien killing her, to let her go.

The male gave one last painful squeeze. Tearing a scream from her throat as everything started to fade away...

(************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************)

Charlie couldn't believe that she had just gotten her baby cousin killed. And by one of her friends no less.

"No..." She watched the scuffle between Throttle and Shara in horror as her cousin was struck again and again before managing to get Throttle off of her. Charlie had hoped that Shara would throw herself through the window in an effort to escape, but that hope had quickly died as she had watched her turn and grab Throttle's wrist when he swung his fist at her.

Shara had ducked under his arm and come back up and slammed her elbow into Throttle's jaw, knocking his shades off before he had jerked loose and grabbed her up and stared squeezing the life out of her like a boa-constrictor would squeeze the life out of a rabbit.

It had been painful to watch. And she had tried to pull herself free of Vinny's grip so that she could help her cousin, but the youngest of the three aliens that she had befriended held her far too tightly to escape him.

So she screamed, hysterically as she struggled in Vinnys grip. _Begging_ Throttle to let Shara go before he killed her.

But he didn't seem to hear her. No one seemed to hear her until a loud ragged scream echoed through the room and Throttle finally dropped her baby cousin.

Shara hit the floor with a dull thud as Throttle stood there glaring down at her rubbing the side of his jaw as Modo made his way over to him. The giant gray alien paused just for a second to pick his leader's shades up off of the floor and then handed them to him. "Guys got a lot of spunk for a human." Modo said in an appreciative tone as he stared at the human that had dared to try and take their gal away from them.

Throttle didn't say anything at first.

He just rubbed his jaw and licked his lips, tasting the slightly metallic taste of blood on his tongue. "I'll say... The bastard has a fist like a steel club-" He said after a second or so, winching a little bit when his jaw ached unmercifully. "He got in some damn good hits." Throttle said as he put his shades back on and thought that it was a damn _pity_ that they would be killing the guy if he wasn't already dead.

Under normal circumstances the four of them might have been great friends.

Hell under normal circumstances the four of them would have been _awesome_ friends. Bros even.

"Yeah, he did. Hey Charlie ma'am-" Modo started to say something as he turned to look towards Vinny who was holding Charlie up by her wrists with a freaked out look on his face as Charlie sat on the floor on her knees crying. Her pretty face ashen. Modo muttered an oath as Throttle turned his head to look at their friend, confusion etched into his features.

"Charlie?"

"_Why_-" The woman sobbed as she stared at him. "_Why didn't you listen to me? Why did you have to get so overprotective?_"

"Because your important to us." Throttle said gently, stating what he had thought should have been obvious to the woman by now. They thought of her as a sister. It was only natural for them to want to protect her. It was simply a part of their nature.

"_Bullshit!_" Charlie snapped at him, a pained look on her face. "_If I was as important to you as you say I am, you would have listened to me and left earlier!_" Both Throttle and Modo blinked at the woman and took a small sub conscious step back. Shocked by Charlie's anger. Didn't she understand that they had been trying to protect her form someone who frightened her? Someone that might have hurt or killed her if they had managed to take her away?

"Charlie-" Vinny started to say something but stopped when the woman turned her head and glared at him, she had such a cold look in her eye that he couldn't keep himself from clamming up.

"_Dove wouldn't have hurt me. You idiots. You mis read the situation entirely. I tried to tell you this earlier but you refused to listen. The reason I was so scared of the four of you meeting was because I know that this would happen. I was terrified that one of the four of you would get hurt. And I was right... God I hate it when I'm right-" _Charlie cried as she hung her head and sobbed. Vinny loosened his grip and let her wrists slip from his hands and stood there with a solemn look on his face as she buried her face in her hands and cried as her words registered with his bros.

Throttle looked at Modo, his expression blank before his eyes flickered to the body laying on the floor.

He couldn't tell if the human was still alive or not. He had thought that he had let him go before his organs could rupture, but that wasn't exactly a guarantee that the man was alive. He was just so damn _dainty_.

And Throttle had been pissed enough to miscalculate the amount of pressure that he had used on him when he had squeezed him. Throttle studied the human for a second then pushed Modo aside and then dropped down next to the human and reached for the helmet and carefully (as carefully as he could) pulled the thing off of the human and froze when thick silken silvery blond hair tumbled out of the helmet, momentarily obscuring his vision of the human's face.

Modo said something behind him. But he didn't really hear him. He was too busy brushing the soft hair back from the human's face with a slightly shaky hand.

His heart thudded in his chest and his mind came to a screeching halt as he saw slightly parted petal pink lips with blood oozing out of the corner and pushed the thick mass of hair back a little more and swallowed hard when he could completely see the face of the person he had just almost killed.

_Dear god in heaven-_ He thought in horror as he stared at the most physically beautiful creature he had ever seen before.

A woman?

He had almost killed a woman...


	9. Chapter 9

_No this wasn't right._ Throttle thought in disbelief as he stared at the woman's face in shock. He had never hurt a woman before in his life. He was practically _incapable_ of hurting females. It was too much against his nature.

He was a protector goddammit!

He protected those weaker than himself. Always had. Always would.

And yet he he had gotten into a fist fight with a woman. He had raised his hand against her with the intention to harm and even to kill. The fact that he hadn't known that she was a woman meant nothing. His actions were still inexcusable.

He did a quick visual sweep of her features, noting the pale bloom of purple color along the left side of her jaw, where he had hit her in the face when he had her down on the floor. The helmet must have protected her from serious harm to an extent since the bruising was very faint.

Still the thought of this woman being hurt... of her being dead because of his foolish actions, sickened him. He reached out and gently tipped the woman's head back a little bit and slipped his other hand under her head and lifted her up a little bit and placed his finger tips against her neck and felt for a pulse and nearly broke down and started crying when he felt the strong, steady thudding of her heart under his fingers.

"Throttle?" Modo said his name softly, his voice tinged with nervousness as he silently prayed that his bro hadn't killed the girl. Only god knew what Throttle would do if he _had_ killed Modo knew one thing for sure. Throttle would never forgive himself if he killed an innocent woman.

The guilt would eat him alive.

"She's alive. Vinny, go call Doc, Eperson. Tell him that there was an accident and we need him here right away-" Throttle finally said as his mind started to work again and he carefully lifted the woman a little more and cradled her against his chest as Modo barked out for Vinny to tell the Doc to bring the portable X-Ray machine. They needed to check the woman for broken bones and internal bleeding which meant that Throttle would have to be very, _very_ careful with her or he would end up hurting her even more.

(****************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************)

An hour later-

They stood outside of the spare bedroom waiting for Doc Eperson to come out of the room and tell them something. Charlie was in bed, sound asleep after being given a tranq to help calm her down. Leaving Throttle, Modo and Vinny more or less to their own vices.

Throttle stood with his back against the wall with his arms crossed, his expression blank, his tail wrapping and unwrapping itself from around his right leg. The only sign of his distress.

Modo was pacing back and forth in the hallway, wringing his hands anxiously. And Vinny...

Vinny was helping the doc check the woman over for serious and life threatening wounds. Which meant that he was the only one of them really doing anything useful at the moment. Something that Throttle envied the younger male for.

He felt like he was going to go out of his mind if he didn't hear something soon.

"Do you think little bit is okay? She seemed pretty strong for a girly girl. She may not be hurt very badly at all, right? Right?" Modo babbled to himself as he paced. Throttle closed his eyes for a second and wondered the same things. Then pushed his thoughts to the back of his mind when he reasoned that that was a big part of why she had gotten hurt.

As his bro had said, she was a girly girl.

A _tiny_, _delicate_, and far more_ fragile_ being than himself.

It didn't matter that she was unusually strong for a woman. It didn't matter how hard her blows had felt to him.

He was a _soldier_. A_ killer_ who didn't waste time to incapacitate his victims before he killed them. He broke bones, ripped through flesh, shredded organs. He_ maimed_, and in some cases _tortured_ his victims for information before he killed them.

Because that was sometimes unavoidable in war.

And earlier he had seen just another_ enemy_, trying to take away something that he loved. He had wanted _blood_. He had wanted to _kill_ the woman in the most horrific way possible to protect Charlie.

He didn't kid himself.

If he hadn't felt her going limp in his grasp and had felt just a little bit cheated by the fact that she had been giving up so easily; then he would have squeezed until her heart, lungs and entrails had all ruptured from the pressure and killed her.

He opened his eyes and stared blankly at the floor, feeling like the lowest of Plutarcian scum. Gods what would he do if that woman had irreparable damage to her insides? What if she lived but had health problems for the rest of her life?

What would he do then? How would he make things right? He wondered as the bedroom door opened and Doc. Eperson stepped out carrying the miniature X-Ray machine. Modo stopped his pacing and Throttle lifted his head and looked at the forty year old dark haired human that had been friends with them ever since they had saved his son Alic.

"How is she?" Modo asked anxiously. His gaze flickering back and forth from the Doc to Throttle, worriedly. Throttle just stared at the Doc blankly, his expression betraying nothing of his thoughts though he was feeling more than a little bit sick to his stomach.

Doc. Eperson looked at Modo then at Throttle and gave them a small smile. He had expected broken bones and internal bleeding when they had called him. Not bruised ribs, some hair line fractures and a concussion. "She's fine. A little banged up and bruised. But there are no broken bones. No internal bleeding-" Throttle's ears twitched some as he held his breath. His heart stuttering in his chest. His mind not really comprehending that the woman was okay and relatively unhurt as the Doc kept talking.

"Her ribs are bruised pretty badly and she has some hair line fractures. The bruises might make it a little bit hard for her to breathe. She also has a concussion. I've given Vinny some medicine for her to help her with any pain and discomfort. He knows the dosage and when she should take it as well as how much she should take. Make sure that's she's comfortable and that she _stays_ in bed for the next few days. Don't let her move around too much. And don't let her do any strenuous activity. No _lifting_ things, no _running_ or _jumping_ around- That sort of thing. And if she develops any problems other than her current ones, take her _strait_ to the hospital. Understand?" Eperson said in a stern tone of voice.

Modo nodded his head and shook his hand, looking relieved. But Throttle...

Eperson couldn't read the alien man like he usually could. "Throttle. Walk me out." The man said in a tone that brooked no argument. The alien pushed away from the wall and walked up to him as he said his goodbye's to Modo and Vinny who had just finished dosing the girl and had come out of the room to say bye before Eperson started to walk, Throttle falling into step right behind him.

Eperson waited until they were outside before he bothered speaking. He was a little preoccupied thinking about the woman that he had just patched up. Finding it rather nostalgic that Shara Davidson had come back to town and had been in need of a doctor again. It had reminded him of back when she had been a kid and all the trouble that she had gotten into.

He found it just a little bit funny that the damn girl hadn't changed all that much in the six years that she had been gone. Throttle walked him over to his car and then stopped and put his hands in his pockets and waited for Eperson to say what was on his mind.

"Your a good man Throttle-" Eperson said kindly. "You're kind, generous, loyal to a fault. And your so strong and fierce sometimes that you scare the hell out of me... I know that you wouldn't have hurt that woman if you had known that she was a girl-"

Throttle stayed quiet despite the fact that he was staring at the man from narrowed eyes. Vinny must have run his mouth and told Eperson what had happened. There was no other reason why the man would know that Throttle had been the one to hurt the unknown female. He wrapped his tail around his leg to keep it from thrashing around in irritation.

"Your wrong Doc. I'm not a good man-" Throttle said quietly, needing the man to understand that he wasn't what Eperson thought he was. Or that spunky little female that had gone head to head with him wouldn't be hurt right now.

"Yes you are Throttle. Your a soldier. A defender. You've had to make _life_ or _death_ decisions for a majority of your life. That hasn't changed just because your not on your planet. And what happened up there was a small bi-product of your years of war and strife-" Throttle opened his mouth to argue with the man, but abruptly shut up when the doc gave him a cold look. "You and your bros love Charlie as if she were one of your own people. As if she were your flesh and blood. It's natural that you would deem outsiders- Especially the ones that you know nothing about, a threat to her. It's also natural that you would want to remove those threats. Now let me tell you something about that girl. I've known that girl since she was a kid. She's _exactly_ the same way you and your bros are. She's _strong_, _brilliant_, and so very _fiercely_ _loyal_ that it borders on stupid-"

"And just as possessive. And these traits have caused her more _pain_ than I'm sure, even you, could fathom. I've seen her dragged into my clinic bleeding, and broken and damn near dead time and time again. In my opinion boy, tonight's events were unavoidable. Charlie should have introduced you sooner. Or at the very least told you something about her. But I can understand why she didn't. Charlie is a very private person, and telling you guys about Dove would have made you curious. Which would have dredged up painful memories and meant that she would have had to_ share_ Dove with you when she would rather not share her with anyone-"

"What happened wasn't your fault. Not totally. So I want you to stop feeling guilty and look at this as a chance to make a new friend."

Throttle snorted and looked away from the man. Doubting that the woman would want to even look at him after he had beat the shit out of her.


	10. Chapter 10

Throttle stood on the curb watching Doc. Eperson's cool mint green mustang as it moved further and further away and mulled over the Doc's words a little bit before he turned and walked back inside the garage and quietly closed the door behind him and found both of his bros standing a few feet in front of him with worried looks on their faces. "What did Doc say?" Modo asked curiously.

"He said that the woman upstairs is so fiercely loyal to Charlie that it bordered on stupid." Throttle wasn't sure what possessed him to say _that_ of all things. But when he really thought about it, the Doc was right. That woman's loyalty to Charlie did border on stupid.

And he didn't see _that_ kind of stupid often.

It was actually a very admirable quality in a human.

Especially since there were so very few with said quality. But then again, said quality was like a double edged sword. It made the woman both strong and vulnerable at the same time, and may one day contribute to her demise.

He wasn't sure that he liked that thought much.

Modo and Vinny were quiet for a moment or two, probably trying to think of why the Doc would say such a thing, then both snorted and tried to stifle their laughter as they said, "Well, the Doc may have a point."

"I'd say that he has more than a point my man. No one in their right mind would come here looking for a fight unless they were stupid. Or fiercely loyal to _someone_." Modo snickered. Throttle shook his head at the two and walked past them and into the hallway. Making his way down the hall to first Charlie's room and peeking in on her for a moment to make sure that she was resting.

The tranq that the Doc had given to her must be one hell of a drug. Charlie had been out in under a minute and had had to be carried to bed by Vinny who had pulled her shoes off of her and tucked her into bed so that she could sleep more comfortably.

He noted that their gal pal was laying on her side under the covers, her breathing was steady and shallow in her state of rest. A far cry from what it had been before when she had been crying her heart out because she had thought that he had killed her friend.

He moved back a little bit and gently closed her bedroom door, finding it painful that he had caused his friend such distress, and moved away from her room to look in on the woman that he had almost killed.

He moved silently across the room to stand by her bed and found himself studying the woman's other worldly beautiful features as she slept. He couldn't get over how his mind had never grasped that she was a female. Her small build should have given her away as a woman. Shouldn't it?

Then there was her height and her weight. One would think that those would have given her away too.

Hell, even the soft, smoky voice she had should have given her away. And the fact that she had been wearing such a baggy jacket... Well, he couldn't figure out why she would wear something so unflattering.

Her lushly curved body was a thing of beauty. Her breasts were just a little bit bigger than Charlie's, but not obscenely big. Her waist was slender, and her legs were wonderfully long for a woman her height. All and all, she was a mans wet dream come to life.

He watched the rise and fall of her chest for a moment, noting that her breathing pattern seemed a bit strained and wondered if propping her up a little bit would help her to breathe easier. He leaned forward and started to slip one of his hands under her head when her eyes fluttered then opened.

Throttle froze and held his breath, unsure of what else to do and_ tried_ not to notice the peculiar color of her eyes. Neon pink rimmed in lavender purple._ Such a beautiful and exquisite mix of colors..._ He thought before shaking his head and pushing the thought from his mind. He needed to focus here.

He hadn't expected her to wake up the moment he leaned over her to shift her position so that she could breathe better. Her glazed eyes stared at him for a second and made a hissing sound. "You..." She rasped in that husky soft voice of hers. Her anger evident in her tone despite it's soft tone.

Apparently the fact that she was wounded and drugged hadn't caused her to forget her tussle with him. A pity really. He might have liked trying to talk to her when she wasn't pissed at him. "Did you come to finish me off?" She rasped as she glared at him. Obviously not happy with the fact that she was completely at his mercy.

He sub consciously flexed his fingers in her silken hair and slowly shook his head. "No. No finishing off. No more pain. No more fighting-"

"I don't believe you." She growled.

"I honestly don't care if you believe me or not-" He growled back, suddenly feeling irritated with her as he lifted her slightly, causing her to gasp as a pained expression flickered across her face. Shit, he hadn't realized that merely trying to move her a little bit would hurt her so much.

"Sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you just now." He said as he grabbed a pillow and quickly stuffed it under her shoulders and pressed down on it a little bit with the palm of one hand trying to flatten it out a little more. As he leaned over her a little more until he could feel her breath ghost across the fur of his chest, causing his heart to quicken it's already frantic pace, and quickly finished his task and moved back and let her settle back on the extra pillow.

Shara settled back against the pillow and remained quiet for a second or so as she tried to breathe and was just a little surprised that it was much easier to take air into her lungs in this position. She looked over at the male through narrowed eyes, the wheels in her mind turning. She doubted that she could take his apology about hurting her at face value, but for some odd reason part of her wanted to believe that he hadn't meant to hurt her just now.

No. Part of her wanted to think that he had been trying to help her since that was a characteristic of the males of her race. But at the same time she doubted that she could trust someone that had tried to keep her from her cousin and kill her.

"Are you in pain?" He asked in a low tone that she almost had to strain to hear.

She made a humorless half laughing sound then hissed at him. "You tried to squeeze the life out of me like a snake. Of course I'm in pain-"

"Then I should probably do something about that." Throttle muttered as he looked around the room for a moment, wondering where the medicine Doc. Eperson had left for her was and smiled when he spotted the small vial of clear liquid sitting on the dresser with a few small syringes and several packets of medical swabs. He walked over to the dresser and grabbed the vial and a needle and then picked up one of the medical swabs and walked over to the bed and sat on the edge and read the instructions on the bottle and frowned.

He had no idea how much of this to use. And he couldn't afford to get the dosage wrong or he might actually kill her.

He glanced over at her, curious to know if she had fallen asleep without the use of the drug and saw that she was watching him warily. Not sure what to make of him before asking. "What's the name of the stuff in the vial?"

"Vicodin."

"The safest dose would be two hundred and twenty five if I've already had some. But if you want it to work in a hurry up it to two fifty. It's still fairly safe and I'll be out in minutes depending on where you inject it since I doubt that I would be able to take any pills or tablets easily."

"You know a lot about medicine." Throttle commented with a faint note of curiosity in his voice as he took the cap off of the needle and pushed the syringe all the way down the shoved the needle into the vial and carefully measured the dose that he felt would do the most good for her then set the needle aside for a second and looked at her.

"Where do you want it?" He asked and watched her turn her head slightly until she was looking away from him and managed to lift one finely boned and delicate looking hand to run her finger tips along the artery in her neck.

"Here. The drug will circulate faster."

He picked up one of the medical swabs and gently pushed her hand away from her neck and rubbed the spot with the alcohol swab and ran his index finger along the soft skin of her throat until he found the vein then grabbed the needle. "This is going to sting."

"I don't care. I just want to stop hurting." She said and twitched under his hand as the needle pierced her skin.

"You haven't asked if Charlie is okay." He said softly, his voice slightly chiding as he pushed the syringe down, emptying the small chamber of the pain medicine. The female made a strangled sound in the back of her throat as he pulled the needle out of her neck and then grabbed the alcohol swab and gently dabbed at the little bit of blood that welled up.

"I won't bother asking you if she's okay since I'll be seeing her tomorrow as soon as I wake up."

"You can't get out of bed. Can't really move. And having her see you like this would distress her more. It would also do more damage than good to you to have her in the room with you. It might give you funny ideas about trying to get out of bed and move around before you should."

The female gave a soft almost breathy laugh as she turned her head to look at him again. He could see that the pain medicine was already starting to take effect. She had a drowsy look on her face that hadn't been there before as she said. "_Boy_, there is nothing that you can do to stop me from leaving this bed if I really want too-"

And for a moment he was speechless. Realizing that she was right.

If she really wanted out of the bed in the morning there was nothing that he could do to stop her from getting up. Nothing that wouldn't cause her more pain anyways. Her eyes drifted closed and her breathing pattern changed as he stood up and picked up the used needle and wondered if he was supposed to throw it away when there was only three or four of them lying on the dresser and used the swab that he had used on her skin to wipe it off and then picked up the cap and put it back on it and placed it and the vial of medicine on the dresser then silently left the room.


	11. Chapter 11

Throttle didn't seem to settle in until the early morning hours of the morning.

His bros knew this because they had heard him moving around the apartment and the garage all night, working off the excess energy and stress of the day before finally falling into bed hours later dressed in nothing but his fur, his shades neatly placed on the small table beside his bed where they wouldn't be damaged or broken.

He had been asleep for about four in a half hours, two in a half longer than his bros who had gotten up at about eight thirty that morning. So that they could check on Charlie, give the other woman her pain medicine and fix something for breakfast. Throttle was laying on his stomach, his arms wrapped around his pillow, hugging it against him as he slept when Vinny came running in and started shaking his shoulder.

Throttle moaned and buried his face against his pillow and tried to stay nice and drowsy, but it was a difficult thing to do when Vinny was shaking his shoulder and hissing. "Dude! Dude! You need to wake up! Like right fucking now-"

_Why?_ Throttle's sleep hazy mind wondered. Why should he get up right now? He was tired and that damn willful woman was probably still asleep. So what was the harm in him sleeping in for a little bit longer? He wondered as Vinny kept shaking his shoulder for a minute longer before making a growling sound and then grabbing the covers and jerking them off of Throttle then screaming in mock horror.

"Oh my gods- Your naked!" Throttle cracked an eye open as the tip of his tail flicked in irritation as Vinny continued to scream and rant. "What the hell are you doing sleeping like this? Why aren't you wearing clothes? Don't you know that I'm young and impressionable!"

"Your going to be young and toothless if you don't stop screaming in my ear-" Throttle growled warningly before he turned over onto his back which caused Vinny to fall silent for a second before he let out the most god awful scream that Throttle had ever heard before then started hollering.

"I'm blind! I'm blind! God kill me now!"

Throttle made a frustrated sound and sat up and chucked his pillow at his younger bro then bit back a yawn and stretched his arms out in front of him, his fingers laced together, popping his fingers and a few other joints before propping his elbow on his bent leg and settling his chin in his palm and stared at Vinny for a second before asking, "Why are you in here Vinny?"

Vinny abruptly shut up and gave him a dirty look, trying hard not to look at his leader directly since he was naked and he'd be able to see _everything_ if he did look at him directly. "That girl that you fought with yesterday is trying to get out of bed and Modo is having trouble trying to keep her from moving because he's afraid to touch her."

Throttle made an irritated sound and grabbed his shades and got off of his bed and without putting anything on what so ever walked out of the room to go put a stop to that_ females_ foolishness.

(*******************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************)

Shara stared at the gray furred giant blocking her way in irritation as she swayed on her feet. "Move." She rasped in between pants as she held one of her sides, the white hot pain from struggling to get up had yet to subside and if she didn't get to see Charlie soon she was afraid that she wouldn't have the strength to move again for a while.

And she refused to sit in the spare bedroom worrying herself, and her poor cousin, sick just because it was hard to move.

The gray furred alien didn't budge. He just crossed his arms over his chest and stared down at her from his impressive height, with something akin to surprise or maybe it was awe in his one dark eye as he shook his head no. "Sorry ma'am. But the Doc said that you should stay in bed."

"Do I look like I care about that? I want to see Charlie-"

"You're hurting yourself-" The giant said softly as if pointing out the fact that she was in pain would stop her. She ignored him and took a shaky step forward as the bedroom door slammed open and both she and the gray giant looked towards the door as the other two males came into the room.

Shara stopped moving and stared at the tan furred alien in shock as her face turned a vivid shade of pink as she noticed that the male wasn't wearing so much as a stitch of clothing. The giant made a funny strangled sound in the back of his throat and moved away from her so that the naked male could take his place in front of her.

He crossed his arms over his chest and glared down at her and growled. "What the hell do you think your _doing_ out of bed you little fool?"

"I want to see Charlie." She said weakly, hating the fact that she suddenly seemed so timid. But honestly who wouldn't be intimidated by a naked, hot blooded alien man like the one standing in front of her now?

The guy was built like a-

"Get back into bed right now. Your going to _kill_ yourself if you keep moving around-" He snapped as his tail did this little flicking motion. Indicating his barely suppressed anger. Shara blinked and tipped her head back and glared at him.

"I'm not getting back into bed until I see Charlie." She said firmly and cried out and nearly fell when she felt his tail lightly strike the side that was paining her the most. Logically she knew that he wasn't trying to hurt her further, he had merely been testing her to see what her body could handle at the moment. It had been just a slight pressure, there one second and gone the next but it was enough to force the breath from her lungs and her knees to almost buckle.

Causing her to stagger forward a little more and sort of fall against him as he unfolded his arms and grabbed her by the upper arms and made a soft huffing sound before saying gently. "See. Your in so much pain that you can barely stand. And if you fell you might end up with a broken rib and a punctured lung. You could die."

"I know that. But I have to see Charlie."

"Even if it kills you?" He asked curiously.

"Honey if I was going to die, I would have done it long before now. _This_. Will not kill me despite what you may think. I'm not that weak." Throttle made a humming sound. She had a small, valid point. She wasn't weak.

And god help him, he admired that in her.

She was however stubborn enough not to listen to reason. "I'm aware of how strong you are-" Just like he was aware of how strong she thought she was. "Now listen to reason and stop fighting. Your body is in no condition to be mobile. You need rest if your going to get better-"

"I don't need rest. I need Charlie-" She argued as he sort of picked her up a little bit by her upper arms and maneuvered her back over to the bed. "Hey! Stop! I won't lay back down, dammit! I want to see Charlie!"

"Absolutely not. I'm putting you back in bed and your going to stay there even if I have to tie you to the damn thing."

"You can't do that! I'm not fucking prisoner or pet. You can't tie me to the bed!" He gave her a small mocking smile and ruthlessly let her go and then used his tail to tip her back onto the bed, controlling her fall with a tight grip on her wrists so that he wouldn't cause her further pain and leaned over her a little bit as he let go of her wrists and grinned at her and finally said.

"I can. And I will if you get out of bed again before I say so-" She opened her mouth to say something else but he stopped her by putting his fingers against her lips and warned her in a very soft tone of voice. "_Don't. Push. Me. On. This_. And if you behave I'll bring you something that you can _use_ to talk to Charlie while your bed ridden. Alright." He removed his fingers from her mouth and tugged the covers up over her legs.

Then walked across the room and grabbed the Vicodin and a needle and then moved back to the bed and fixed the syringe, measuring out the safest dose for her since she was obviously in pain. "Turn your head." He ordered her in a tone that brooked no arguments.

Shara stared at him for a second then bared her teeth and growled at him. She was _not_ going to let him drug her again, even if it did help with the pain. She liked being clear minded, thank you very much. Throttle sighed and shook his head, as he felt his ire rising. Dammit, did she have to fight him on everything? Even the things that were for her own good?

He wondered in irritation as he lifted the needle and then quickly stabbed her in the shoulder with it, finding it a little bit satisfying when she yelped and jumped in an effort to get away from him as he emptied the chamber. "What the hell? Did you just stab me with that you son of a bitch?"

Across the room Modo and Vinny both stared in wide eyed shock at their bro. Wondering what in the world may have possessed him to just stab a defenseless woman with a needle...and look so damn happy with himself for doing it.

Throttle gave the woman an thoroughly irritatingly smug smile. "Yep."

"You jerk!" Shara shrieked in outrage as he pulled the needle out of her arm and looked at it with a bemused expression on his face then looked at her again and grinned.

"That was fun. Maybe I should do it again-"

"Don't you dare! That hurt dammit!"

"Then behave and rest like a good girl. Or the next time I stab you with a needle it'll be somewhere _very_ uncomfortable-" He said with a cheerful smile as he set the needle aside and stood up and walked back over to his bros and said in a low tone. "You guys can take over from here. I'm going to go take a shower and then go out patrolling."


	12. Chapter 12

Throttle stood in the shower, letting the lukewarm water run down his back and shoulders as he tipped his head back and wet his hair so that he could wash it and tried to figure out why he had stabbed that _vexing_ spunky little hellion with the syringe a few minutes ago.

He wasn't exactly mad that she had tried to go find Charlie. He sort of understood her reasons for wanting to see Charlie so bad.

Nor was he exactly upset with her for arguing with him. In fact, he sort of liked arguing with her. Weird as it was; he liked her fiery temper and her defiance. He thought them kind of funny and cute all at once and found that he couldn't resist the urge to needle her.

But that didn't explain why he had stabbed her with the needle like he had. As if he had been trying to deliberately hurt her.

He hadn't acted like a total bastard like that since...

_Carbine._

As soon as the thought of his late lover crossed his mind he savagely cut off his own train of thought to spare himself the pain of reliving her death.

He sighed tiredly and grabbed the shampoo bottle and poured some of the soap into his hand then set the bottle down and rubbed his palms together then started working it through his hair. Careful not to get the soap too close to his eyes since he had learned first hand just how much that sucked the first time he had ever taken a shower in Charlie's bathroom.

He ran his blunt finger nails along his scalp, rubbing as hard as he dared as he worked the soap into his hair and the fur along the nape of his neck in an effort to make sure that he had everything covered before ducking his head under the spray and rinsing himself off then turning off the water and pushing the glass door open and taking his towel off of the hook and started to rub himself dry. Or at the very least, semi dry so that he could step out of the shower without making a puddle for someone to slip in.

The last thing he needed was for someone else to get hurt.

He finished drying off and set the towel on the floor then stepped on it so that it could soak up any water that he might have missed before, and closed the shower door behind him and picked up his shades and put them on despite the fact that it was foggy in the bathroom and he wasn't able to see very well as he picked up a brush and ran it through his hair, shying away from his antennae since the bristles of his brush would hurt them and set it back down once he was done.

Then grabbed the clean pair of pants that he had set down on the counter and quickly pulled them on and then reached for the sleeveless sky blue wife beater that Charlie had gotten for him for his his last birthday and pulled it on over his head as he heard a soft knock at the bathroom door.

"Throttle?" Modo asked tentatively, his voice muffled by the door.

Throttle pulled the shirt down and tucked the hem into his pants then called out to his bro. "Yeah, Modo. What is it?"

"Charlie ma'am is awake and asking to see her friend." Modo called back as he heard the faint sounds of his bro picking up after himself before the bathroom door opened and Throttle stepped out completely dressed with his dirty laundry tucked under one arm.

"Does she know that her friend is alive?" Throttle asked curiously as he had a flash back to how Charlie had acted yesterday, before Doc Eperson had shown up. She had acted as if her friend was dead. Even though they had told her _repeatedly_ that the woman wasn't dead.

Modo was quiet for a second then nodded his head and said. "Yeah. Vinny did one of those 'mind meld things' to show her that her friend was alive and well."

"And how did she take it?"

"Oh she's fairly tickled pink that that little hellion is alive and kicking. She's not so happy about her being hurt though." Modo said as they walked down the hall to the third spare room, the one that he and his bros shared and watched his leader put the dirty laundry in the hamper before heading further down the hall to Charlie's room.

And not a minute too soon since a lamp collided with the wall just shy of Vinny's head as he opened the door and peeked in and made a humming sound as Vinny faced down the pissed off woman. "Charlie!"

"Shut up fur ball! What the hell is wrong with you guys that you can't even listen to me when I try to tell you something? Do you know how _pissed_ I am at the lot of you for hurting Dove?"

"I didn't hurt her!" Vinny fairly yelled at the brunette as she grabbed a small perfume bottle off of her dresser and threw it at him before running over to the closet and opening the door and pulling out her shoe box and started to throw her shoes at Vinny too.

_Maybe I should come back later..._ Throttle thought as he watched his younger bro try to defend himself from the little human female's ire. As he moved this way and that and flinched in an effort to dodge everything that she threw at him.

"No. You didn't hurt her but you and Modo damn well just stood there and _let_ Throttle hurt her! I tried to tell you three over and over again during that fight that Dove was a girl! That she wouldn't stand a chance, and the whole damn lot of you _ignored_ me!"

Vinny opened his mouth to snap at her about how he had been holding her back. _Out. Of. Harms. Way_. But abruptly closed his mouth when Throttle and Modo slipped into the room behind him, causing Charlie to stop throwing things for a second so that she could glare at the other two objects of her anger.

"Your right Charlie girl. We did ignore you, and we shouldn't have done that. Because if we had just listened like you wanted us too, your friend wouldn't be hurt right now. And for that; I am so very _sorry_." Throttle said with a somber expression on his face. Charlie made a low growling sound and stomped over to the tan furred mouse and brought her hands up and slapped both of his cheeks sharply.

Throttle held himself perfectly still despite the fact that his training as a soldier demanded that he move, _lash out_, just do something other than stand there and let himself be hit. His fur bristled a little bit as his cheeks stung from being smacked roughly, and he looked at Charile. Noting that she didn't look so angry now. Just very hurt and upset. "Your damn right that your sorry. You almost killed someone that means more to me than life itself. Don't you _ever_...do that again." She said in a low tone as he reached up and grasped her wrists and gently pried her hands from his cheeks and kissed her palms.

"I won't Charlie. You have my word."

Her lips quirked up in a small smile. "Well. That's something I guess. Now as for your two-" She said as she turned her attention to Modo and Vinny both of whom took a step back away from her and looked fearful.

"Will you please not yell at us too badly if we swear that we'll never not listen to you again?" Modo asked hopefully. His ears drooping a little bit as Vinny pressed himself against his side and tried to look small.

"That depends. Are you sorry for not listening to me?" Charlie asked in a dangerously low tone as she crossed her arms over her breasts and glared at them.

"Yes ma'am." Modo said as he hung his head. Vinny nodded his head and looked ashamed as he cowered behind the gray mouse causing Charlie to smirk at them, more than a little amused that she could terrify such big tough guys.

"Alright then. _Maybe_ I'll forgive you all...if you let me see Dove." Charlie said, hoping that her boys would cave like they usually did and was unprepared for the series of negative replies.

"No."

"You can't."

"Sorry Charlie ma'am."

Charlie stood there in shocked disbelief for a second before growling at the lot of them, her temper starting to rise again. "Why the hell not?"

"Charlie, please- Calm down..."

"Like hell I will! I want to see Dove-" Charlie said as she tried to move past Throttle, who was blocking the door. But he grabbed her and wouldn't let her pass. She jerked in his grasp and tried to get him to let go, arguing with him the whole time.

"Let me go right now Throttle!"

"I'm sorry Charlie but I can't do that-" Throttle said as she tried to pry his hands off of her. "If we let you see her now it will only encourage her to move around more and she really shouldn't do that since her ribs are hurt pretty bad." Throttle went on to say, trying to make her understand. But his voice didn't seem to reach her. She fought like a little wild cat.

Hissing and spitting and scratching, her need to see her cousin and to make sure that Shara was in bed and resting, trumping her thoughts of anything else. Her mind blocking out everything else. Vinny and Modo. Everything that Throttle was trying to tell her. None of it mattered.

All she could think, all that she knew, was that she needed to see Shara. Finally after a second or so of struggling to get past Throttle; Charlie growled and brought the heel of her foot down on his unprotected foot- He stiffened and bit his lower lip and tightened his grip on her shoulders a little bit before she brought her leg up again, and before he could react, she nailed him in the crotch.

He yelped and automatically let go of her and sank to the floor, curling his body slightly in an effort to protect himself from further harm as he tried to breathe through the pain that his friend had just caused him as Charlie slipped out of the bedroom and ran down the hall-

"Bro!" Vinny said as he started to drop to one knee beside Throttle, but the tan furred mouse waved him off and gasped.

"Stop. Her."


	13. Chapter 13

Charlie stood in the open doorway to the spare bedroom, knowing that if Shara was anywhere that she would be there.

And she was right. She could see her little cousin laying under the pale blue and gold covers, her silvery white hair hanging over one of her shoulders and fanning across her cheek while she slept. She was alive... She could see the slight rise and fall of Shara's chest from where she stood.

Relief unlike anything she had ever felt before, flooded her, nearly causing her to collapse there in the door way.

She was having just a little trouble getting over the fact that her little cousin had gotten into a knock down drag out fist _fight_ with a two hundred and fifty pound, _enraged_ alien, and was still alive. Part of her knew that she shouldn't have been so surprised by the fact that Shara had fought Throttle and was still breathing. God knew that the girl had gotten into scrapes just as bad as this one and more or less walked away.

Like the time she had been jumped by a rival gang while walking to school and had been beaten with in an inch of her life with bricks and chains while charlie and the others had been forced to watch because she had ordered them not to do anything stupid because they weren't armed. And she hadn't wanted them hurt, even if it ended up killing her.

It had been one of the _many_ most _horrible_ things that Charlie had ever witnessed her cousin suffer through. But the horror hadn't ended there. No, Shara just seemed to draw trouble to her like honey drew flies.

And to top it all off she had a pattern of deeply rooted self destructive behavior that had made Charlie and their friends_ fear_ for the girl's sanity and her life.

In school, Shara had been voted the most likely to succeed. And she had also been voted the person most likely to die with in a week. Her habits and addictions had no boundaries. She never backed down when she should. She never ran away. She'd never let someone in danger, come to harm. Not as long as she was alive and kicking.

Shara was a hero because of these things, having saved her fair share of defenseless people.

Her cousin was a_ fool_, to risk her life so much for people who had never looked twice at her or cared about her.

But she was a hero never the less. And Charlie for one was _proud_ of her for everything that she had accomplished. She felt a hand on her shoulder and turned her head and stared up at Modo's worried face and felt like such a bitch for acting the way that she had.

"Charlie ma'am-" He was worried that she was going to fight him like she had fought Throttle. She could see it in his eye. He needn't have worried now that she had seen her cousin, she felt so much calmer than she had before.

All of her fear and her worry drained away, leaving her feeling guilty for fighting with her boys when she knew that they had only been trying to help. "I'm fine Modo-" She said in a soft tone as she very gently closed the door to the room and then smiled at him. "Now lets go find Throttle so that I can beg him to forgive me for hurting him."

Modo nodded his head and took her hand and led her back down the hall to her room.


	14. Chapter 14

Later that day after doing their afternoon patrol around the city, the mice sat down to lunch in Charlie's dining room. While Charlie talked to her friend on one of the little toy CB radios that Throttle had brought back for her and her friend from a local toy store so that the two women could talk without seeing each other. Since seeing each other while 'Dove' was healing was considered a very bad idea.

Charlie set down a small plate with BBQ chips and a turkey sandwich and then pulled out a chair at the table and set the CB down and sat across from Modo and Vinny then took a bite of her food while Dove talked over the CB about how she had moved back into town months ago, and Throttle couldn't help but notice the annoyed expression on Charlie's face before she picked up the CB and asked.

"If you've been in town all this time how come you never looked me up? I haven't seen you since Marks funeral you know." Throttle's ears twitched slightly as he slowed his chewing a bit, and found himself vaguely wondering who Mark was and why Dove had disappeared after his funeral.

"_I did. I just did it in a freaky stalkerish way_." Dove said.

Charlie frowned. "Define what you mean by 'freaky stalkerish way'."

"_Every day at six forty five, I would drive by the garage. Every day at noon I would follow you out and about town while you ran errands. And this one time I saw you hugging a guy I wrecked my motorcycle outside of the garage._"

Charlie was quiet for a second before asking. "That dork was you?" The guys looked at her, recalling that particular incident.

They had been standing out of the curb joking around and watching Charlie as she had talked to some guy that had stopped by the garage and had witnessed her hug him, when a sleek blue bike had come around the curb at about that time and the rider had slammed on the brakes and gotten thrown from the bike.

The mice had been about to call an ambulance when the rider had just lain there twitching and bleeding for a second or so before getting back up, grabbing the bike and riding off before they could recover enough to so much as ask the rider if he-er _she_ had been okay.

They had always wondered what had happened to that person.

"_Fraid so. I was so distraught by the fact that you were dating that I went right home and had a good long cry_." Throttle looked away from Charlie for a second.

"Were you hurt?"

"_Not terribly, no. I think I was more bothered by the fact that I saw you with some guy_."

"I'm sorry doll..." Charlie said, not knowing what else to say.

"_Whatever Charlie. I know that you'll want to settle down some day... Just don't settle down with anyone that I can't scare the ever loving hell out of. Okay?_" Charlie's lips curved up in a small smile.

"I won't as long as you tell me all the news that is news."

Dove sighed on the other end. "_What do you want to know?_"

"Did you meet any nice guys while you were gone?"

"_No. Not really. I met this one guy that I thought was nice, but..._"

"What did he do to you?" Charlie demanded, an dark look on her face. Vinny, Modo and Throttle all pushed their plates away, no longer hungry. They were simply too _curious_ now to care much about food.

Dove was quiet for several minutes. Perhaps several minutes too long since Charlie growled, "Did he hit you?"

Again Dove said nothing for a second before replying. "_I've been hit by guys before Charlie. That's nothing that I can't handle..._"

"Did he force-"Charlie's question was cut off by a loud.

"**_No!_** _Jesus Christ girl, why would you automatically think that? I wouldn't stick around with a guy that did that shit_."

"Then what did he do?"

"_He tried to sell me to some of his friends- There you happy?_"

Charlie's face drained of color and she got a horrified look on her face as the guys tensed. Sensing that there was more to the story than Dove was saying, and held onto their tempers while they waited for her to say more.

"Oh. _Oh baby_, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to-"

"_It's fine Charlie. He didn't do much damage to me other than tearing apart my confidence in myself. It took some time, and a lot of drinking, but I'm fine now._" Shara was lying. Charlie could tell by the chipper sound of her tone.

Her cousin never _lied_ to her unless she was hurting bad. And even then, she normally lied about the small hurtful stuff.

She had never_ tried_ to lie about the truly painful experiences in her life. Nor had she ever tried to hide them from Charlie before. And Charlie didn't know how to respond to her cousin's pain. She wanted to say something comforting but all she could think of was, "He killed your white picket fence dream didn't he?"

Dove sighed. "_Dreams often die Charlie. Whats one more?_" Came the soft almost weary/sad reply.

"Did you kick his teeth in?"

A soft breathy laugh was Charlie's reply. "_Oh yeah, I kicked his teeth in and then some._"

"Good girl..." Charlie said softly as she tired to think of what to say next and decided to try and take Shara's mind off of what she had just confessed to her and finally she came up with something and asked.

"Do you remember some of the trouble we used to get into in school?"

"_Would you hate me if I said no?_"

Charlie's lips twitched a little bit as the guys propped their chins in their hands and listened, thinking that the stories that they were about to hear would be funny. It was a rare chance to know about how Charlie had grown up.

Not something that they could have ignored even if they wanted too.

"Okay, let me see if I can jog your memory... Do you remember the time you took a picture of Mark in his boxers and put it in the school year book?"

Dove laughed. The sound made Charlie smile. "_I vaguely recall that. I think that was one of the few times that I had ever seen a nearly grown man cry_-"


	15. Chapter 15

The guys sat at the table listening with great interest as Charlie and Dove corroborated each other's school and young adult experiences and couldn't help but shake their heads in disbelief before getting up and leaving the room. Charlie's friend as it turned out...

Was a lunatic. And not the normal run of the mill lunatic, but one without _shame_ or _common sense_. Similar to Vinny when he was on a sugar high.

And the stories that they had heard so far could qualify as blackmail material- It was all so embarrassing, and stupid._ Amusing_; suiting the twisted personalities of the three aliens.

Yet, still stupid.

It made the guys wonder how the two women had managed to live for as long as they had. They always seemed to get into trouble when they were together from the way they had talked. Which was a little bit worrying. Vinny and Modo went to watch TV. Leaving Throttle with the task of checking in on Dove, who was most likely to be pissed at him for stabbing her with that needle this morning.

He sighed and checked his watch, wondering how much longer he had until the next time he and his bros had to go patrolling and walked down the hall to the spare room and stopped when he noticed that the door was slightly ajar.

He rolled his eyes and made a soft irritated sound and gently pushed the door open and automatically noticed that Dove, wasn't in bed. Nor was she anywhere in the room that he could see her. He blinked and stepped into the room and started looking for her and couldn't believe that that stupid, irritating woman had not only gotten out of bed again but was gone.

_How the hell-_

There was no real trace of her in the room aside from the messed up bed sheets and the pain medicine that was sitting on the bedside table. He walked over to the bed and put his hand against the sheets, feeling for any traces of warmth that might indicate how long Dove had been up and found that the sheets were cool to the touch.

A low growl escaped his throat as his fur bristled and stood up a little bit as anger pulsed through him._ That damn stupid foolish little-_

"Charlie!" He bellowed so loudly that for a brief instant it had felt as if the walls around him had shook as Charlie and his bros came running down the hall and stopped as he came through the bedroom door and snatched the little CB radio out of Charlie's hand and fairly snarled.

"Girl you better tell me where you are right now so I can come and get you before you hurt yourself. _Or. I. Will. Be. Pissed_..."

Charlie blinked at Throttle as she realized that Shara must have used her talk with Charlie and the fact that no one was around to really watch her, to get up and leave the garage, after getting her CB radio.

_Good one cuz. Just piss off the bad ass alien further._ Charlie thought in wary amusement as Modo and Vinny checked out the bedroom and came back looking puzzled and irritated as Dove laughed and replied to Throttle's threat with a snarl of her own.

"_Watch your tone with me boy. I'm not your bitch-" _Throttle blinked and held the CB away from his mouth a little bit and frowned. What the hell was this woman's problem? He was worried about her. Was that so difficult for her to understand?_ "You don't order me around. Besides, we'll be seeing each other again real soon. Until then fuzzy-_"

"I'll have pleasant dreams about wringing that pretty little neck of yours." Throttle said in a dark tone as his tail thrashed around for a second. Dove gave an amused laugh before all sound from her end went silent.

Throttle bared his teeth at the radio and handed it back to Charlie and stomped off, suddenly feeling the need to go get some fresh air before Dove drove him batty.

*******************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************)

Shara set the radio on the small dresser next to her TV and pulled her button up, white cotton shirt, up onto her shoulders and buttoned the bottom four buttons then tucked the hem of her shirt into the waist of her clean pants, her long silvery blond hair hanging in her face and down her back in little damp treadle's, still damp from the shower that she had just taken.

And then walked over to her bed and reached down and picked up the small brush laying on the little table next to it and sat down and started to brush her hair.

She had a long night ahead of her and no real time to rest.

There were far too many that she needed to do...

(************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************)

End of part one-

The next chapter will start with a brief time skip.


	16. Chapter 16

It had been a few weeks since Shara had escaped and things were finally getting back to normal though Throttle still went out on daily patrols to see if he could find her cousin.

"Simply for the sake of strangling her-" He said every time he got on his bike to leave.

Frankly Charlie thought it was sad that the alien had run out of creative ways to kill her cousin in his dreams. But she didn't stop him. And neither did Vinny or Modo who felt that it would be therapeutic for their bro to leave on his daily 'Dove' hunts.

Today had started out like any other day, the guys had patrolled the city shortly after getting up and had come back in a relatively good mood after thwarting a bank robbery. They had all sat down for lunch and the guys had watched some TV.

And now...

Charlie looked up from her current fix job to check the time and smiled a little bit when she noted that it was time for Throttle's Dove hunt trip. She could hear the heavy sound of Throttle's biker boots on the floor and could pin point his exact location in the apartment.

Down the hall, passing the kitchen; and heading her way fast.

A second or so later he walked into the garage, gave her an amused look that he quickly hid behind a scowl as he passed her. Charlie snickered and he gave a low growl. "It's _not_ funny woman." He snapped as he grabbed his helmet and sat down.

_It_ being the fact that her friend had dug a small place for herself under his skin. And that he hadn't been able to do much of anything other than _worry_ about the damn _vexing_ female since she disappeared.

Charlie snickered a little more. "But it_ is_ funny. It's also sort of cute that she outsmarted you and now you can't get her out of your mind-" Charlie's snickering morphed into soft laughter as Throttle's fur bristled and he flushed brightly enough for her to tell that he was blushing under his fur.

"Nu-uh! I can forget her at any time-" He was lying of course. If he had been able to really _forget_ that odd, deranged friend of Charlie's then he would have already. But as it was he couldn't forget her.

She had made too much of an impression on him when they had fought, and again when their wills had clashed.

To be perfectly blunt- There was just something about her fiery temper and her strong will that he liked very, very, _very_ much. Maybe a little too much.

Perhaps it was the fact that the only woman he had ever clashed wills with had been Carbine, or maybe it was something else entirely.

He didn't know at the moment. He just knew that he hadn't been able to strangle her in his dreams like he had said he would.

No. He had gotten much more creative. And that is where his confusion stemmed from.

The moment he closed his eyes and conjured an image of Dove in his minds eye, all he could think of was how small and delicate and breathtakingly _beautiful_ she had been. His blood stirred in his veins. And all he could imagine himself doing to her, no matter how pissed or irritated he was with her willful little self, was holding her.

Running his fingers through her silken hair. Breathing in her scent-

He cut his mind off right there as images from the dream he'd had last night, of Dove being pinned under him.

Her pale naked skin littered with love bites. Their fingers laced together. His hips thrusting against her, causing her to gasp and cry out and arch up into him; rose up in his mind.

He made a loud irritated growling sound and looked up when Charlie tapped him on the shoulder. "_What?_" He rasped in a rough tone that for a second he didn't even recognize as his own as she grinned down at him.

"You do a wonderful impression of an pissed off bear." Charlie said in amusement as he scowled at her again, making his expression as dark as he could and snapped.

"Who said it was an impression?" He was feeling like a pissed off bear at the moment and needed to get out and into the open before he broke something. He flipped his visor down and gave Charlie a small awkward wave and started his bike.

A second later he was out on the road.

(********************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************)

Shara was walking down the street carrying a bag of groceries, and digging into her pants pocket for her cell phone and stopped in front of her favorite store as she flipped her phone open and pressed speed dial one to call Charlie.

She'd been having a fairly good day today and wondered if she could coax Charlie to come out into town for a little bit. Maybe coax her to show up at her club later tonight so that they could have a proper visit.

She put the phone to her ear and waited for her cousin to pick up when a familiar navy blue bike, with a familiar looking biker, appeared down the street from the shop she was standing in front of. And she automatically flipped the phone closed. Then dug into her grocery bag and pulled out a small can of tuna and waited for just the right second and chucked the can at the biker's head-

(**************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************)

Throttle saw her standing on the side walk an instant before something came flying towards his head. He thought of braking for a second but decided against that since the force of the stop might throw him from his bike. And then swerved to avoid getting hit and did a U turn right there in the street intending to get up on the side walk and give her a good scare for chucking something at his head.

And growled in irritation when he noted that the spot that she had been in before was empty and she was gone. He sub consciously tightened his hands on the handles of his bike and revved the engine for a second.

There was no way that she could have disappeared without a_ total_ trace. She wasn't a bloody ghost, no matter how pale she was. Nor was there any chance that she could have gotten very far. Which meant that if he stopped holding up traffic and looked around the block, he just might be able to find her.

He smiled behind his visor and turned his bike around again, deciding that if she were to go somewhere it would be some place dark. Which meant that there was a stellar chance that she was in one of the dark alleys around the store that she had been in front of.

So the alleys would be the first place he looked.

(****************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************)

Shara nearly dropped her groceries when the biker had braked for a second then started to do a U turn right there in the middle of the street and turned around and started running down the narrow passage between her favorite shop and the building next to it, silently cursing herself for not thinking her _chuck-a-can-at-the-bigger-and-badder-than-bad-man's_ head plan; completely through like an _intelligent_ person would have.

Especially since said man was probably at this moment lying in wait for her some where.

Yet at the same time she couldn't help but laugh. She'd bet the infuriated look on the male's face had really been something to see when he had noticed that she was gone.

She came out of the narrow alley and turned right and started running down the next alley and figured that she was far enough from where she had started, and stopped running and doubled over panting for a second as she listened for the specific purr of the bike that the male had been riding and was just slightly puzzled when she couldn't hear anything.

Had he given up trying to find her already?

Had he left? She wondered as a strange feeling of disappointment filled her. She didn't understand why the thought of him giving up so easily disappointed her, but for some odd reason it did.

She sighed, suddenly feeling depressed and started walking and came out at a place half a block from her home. And was about to start strait there when a strong steely arm grabbed her around the waist from behind, and she was suddenly lifted up off of her feet and held against a hard male body.

"You are by far the most irritating woman I've ever come across..." Shara twisted her head around and stared up at the soft brown furred alien, unable to speak as he smiled at her and then put her feet on the ground yet didn't remove his arm from around her as he asked, "How's your ribs?"


	17. Chapter 17

Chichi-I fixed the weight issue. Let me know if anything else seems...to need fixing.

(**************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************)

Throttle pulled his bike into the parking space and parked his bike as his companion-er _kidnapee_ quickly scurried off of the bike and jerked the helmet that he had forced on her; off of her head. And reared back her arm to throw it at him. He sighed and mentally shook his head. Wondering when she would learn that part of the reason he had her in the first place was because she threw something at his head. While he used his tail to jerk one of her legs out from under her causing her to sort of hop around for a second just to keep her balance.

As he removed his helmet and pulled the key from the ignition of his bike and pocketed it before saying.

"You've got a little bit of a mean streak in you, huh, baby girl?"

She bristled slightly and growled at him. "Anyone would develop a mean streak when they've been kidnapped!"

"You say that like you expect me to believe you were a sweet girl before I caught you. And I didn't kidnap you."

"Yes you did-"

"I made a strong _suggestion_ for you to join me for an outing."

"You had me in a sleeper hold! There was no escape!"

"After you kicked me in the ribs."

"_Again_ you had me in a sleeper hold! It was hard to breathe!"

"Which is why you seemed so forgiving when I apologized."

She turned a vivid pink and shrieked at him. "_What apology?_ I heard no apology! All I heard was a really bad Terminator impression of, _Come with me if you want to live_! And FYI fuzzy, you_ deserved_ that kick to the ribs and more!"

Throttle suppressed the urge to grin as he tipped his head back and looked up at the sky. Pretending that he hadn't heard her. "Wow the sky is so blue today-"

"_Bastard_ pay attention when I'm talking to you."

"And the wind feels so nice-" Throttle continued as the woman made a cat like hissing sound before saying.

"Goddamn it, fuzzy the second you turn your back I'm gonna shiv you in the kidney and drop you into the river!" Throttle laughed and got up off of his bike and towered over her. His shoulders shaking with barely suppressed mirth as he took the helmet from her and let his tail slip from around her ankle so that she was standing normally again.

Gods he loved arguing with this woman. She was just so damn cute when she was spitting mad. She took and involuntary step back away from him as he bent over a little bit and said in a hushed tone as he grasped her wrist and started walking. "I'd love to see you try." And he meant it. He'd love to see this deranged slip of a woman try something like that.

It would give him an excuse to take her into custody-er make her a _prisoner_-er keep her some place where only he could reach her.

She made a sputtering sound and was forced to start walking or she might have ended up being dragged by him as he walked them towards a nice secluded area surrounded by dense greenery. "Why are you dragging me towards a secluded wooded area?" She asked in a slightly panicked tone that had him looking over his shoulder at her.

"So that I'll have you all to myself."

"Oh-" Her tone was sounding slightly hysterical now. "Oh that makes perfect sense if your going to &%#$ me and then &**%$^#*& and then kill me."

He stopped walking and half turned to face her, his expression blank while he inwardly swore to himself. Dear god in heaven, the woman got some funny ideas about him and his character.

To be perfectly honest he wasn't sure how to respond to the silly idea that had sprung into her mind. He wanted to tell her she was wrong. That he wasn't the sort of guy to do such horrible and despicable things on a helpless woman, but he was pretty sure that she'd think he was lying anyways.

So he let go of her wrist and just sat down where he was and patted the ground in front of him and looked at her expectantly. "I can't help but think that we've gotten off on the wrong foot." He said as she nervously sat down across from him...well out of arms reach.

"No shit."

"So how about we start over? My name is Throttle. What's yours? Is it really Dove?" Throttle asked curiously as he propped his elbow on his knee and rested his cheek on his hand and waited for her reply.

Shara gave him a suspicious look and quietly muttered that Dove wasn't her name. It was the nickname that her mom had given her because she was so pale. Her real name was Shara Ester, purposely leaving out her last name.

Just like she kept the fact that her mother should have nicknamed her 'Ghost' to herself since she was probably the only one that would find the nickname joke amusing. Throttle smiled a little bit. Shara, was a beautiful name. Unique, and lovely like the woman herself.

"How old are you?" He wondered after a second or so of trying to think of what to ask next before it occurred to him. Shara was so small and almost child like despite the lush curves of her body, that it was hard to tell exactly how old she was.

To him, she looked like she was in her teens even though she had said that she was only a year or so younger than Charlie.

Shara blinked at him and flushed. "I'm twenty three. How old are you?"

"I'm a little over seventy in my races years...but I suppose that that wasn't what you were asking. Let me think for a second-" Throttle said as he did some quick calculations in his head then answered her. "In earth years I'm twenty five."

"If your in your a little over seventy in your kinds years, how long is your life span?"

Throttle blinked at the question. Unsure of how to answer her since it was a damn good question. He'd have to think about all of the factors that kept his race alive. Their bodies were bigger than normal, more powerful. To help them survive the rough condition of their planet.

They aged slower. Their bodies were better equipped to fight off infections and healed twice as fast as they once would have. Though there were some things that they needed medical attention for.

Technology was way more advanced on Mars. Illnesses and disease were easy to cure. The loss of limbs and organs, easy to replace. And sometimes even lives could be snatched back from the jaws of death if one had the right tools.

A martian _without_ the use of technology could live for five or six hundred years before their age finally caught up to them. Mostly because old age didn't set in for their kind until about four hundred and fifty. After that everything was down hill.

However someone with the use of technology could live well into seven or eight hundred years before the technology keeping them alive, started to turn against them and make them sick. So all in all, without technology-five to six hundred years. And those with technology-seven to eight.

"A few hundred years." He finally said and she sort of gaped at him for a second before moving forward until she was right in front of him and reached out with one hand and put it against his chest. He sucked in a breath and held himself perfectly still while she practically crawled in his lap and ran her hands over his chest, then up to his shoulders-

He would have liked to stop her because of how intimate her touch felt to him but forced himself to stay still and quiet while she appeased her curiosity as she lifted her hands to run them along his antennae, her breasts pressed flush with his chest, forcing him to lean himself back so that he couldn't feel quiet so much of her body against his own.

And finally fell back on the ground when she leaned into him just a little bit too much and the only way to get some space between them was to go ahead and let himself fall back completely.


	18. Chapter 18

Shara ran her fingers along the male's antennae and paused when she felt him shudder under her before he lifted his hands to grasp her hips, causing her to look down at him. He looked tense and just a little bit uncomfortable, making her wonder if she was maybe doing something that she shouldn't.

She took her hands away from his antennae and instead ran her finger tips along the rim of his ears and squeaked when he jerked under her and made a hissing sound. "Is something wrong?"

Throttle didn't know exactly how to respond to her question. On one hand he was_ loving_ having her touch him like this, even if her actions were driven by innocent curiosity. It had been so long since he'd felt the touch of a female that it was impossible for him to not love being touched.

And on the other hand, he was fighting himself in an effort to keep from thrusting against her. His blood felt like it was burning in his veins. His heart thudded almost painfully in his chest.

He recognized the signs of arousal in himself and needed to stop her before his control snapped and he did something unforgivable. "Yes. Your pushing my control here Shara-" She gave him a questioning look, not really understanding what he was talking about. He sighed and tightened his grip on her hips and watched her face while he rubbed his crotch against her through her pants and knew the exact moment that she fully understood what he had been talking about.

The shocked look on her pretty face, coupled with the vivid pink flush that worked it's way up to her pale cheeks; were both telling. Just like the strained choking sound she made in the back of her throat.

He let go of her and watched in disappointment as she all but scrambled across the ground away from him. It was a damn shame to him really. He'd been without female companionship for the past five years and now that he was finally feeling the stirrings of desire again, the woman he wanted didn't seem to like or care for him.

It was frustrating enough to almost make him cry.

Or at least he might have cried if he hadn't decided to try and court Shara would give him a better chance of getting to know her and to more closely examine his newly awakened desire. Maybe find out what it was about her that he liked so much.

God knew that she would keep him nice and entertained. And maybe he could curb some of those stupid, troublesome impulses of hers, and keep her out of trouble.

He doubted that she would just go along with him, but he could at least still try. In the mean time...

"I'm sorry Shara, I shouldn't have done that but you really were pushing me to my limits." He said gently, hoping that she would understand that he hadn't done that to be deliberately cruel, or to even frighten her.

He'd done it merely to show her what she was doing to him.

Shara sat on the ground a good twenty feet from him with one hand resting over her heart, her face burning with embarrassment. Dear god, did he keep a frigging anaconda in his pants? He was- Wait! Why was she thinking about his size? When she should be scared to death that he might do weird things to her.

She heard him apologize and couldn't help but wonder what he was apologizing for when she was the one who needed to re learn the concept of personal space. Besides, it wasn't like he had hurt her.

He'd just sort of..._blew_ her mind. She'd be utterly useless for the rest of the day now.

And as if to prove her way of thinking, she didn't notice him right in front of her, waving his hand before her eyes before he sighed and slipped an arm around her slender waist and sort of picked her up and steered her back towards his bike muttering something about 'Strange women' and 'He wasn't _that_ impressive'.

She might have called him a liar if she had been able to articulate her own thoughts enough to form words.

(*******************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************)

An hour later Throttle pulled up to the curb just outside the shop that Shara had been standing in front of when she had chucked that can of tuna at his head and helped her off of the bike. Noting that she kept fidgeting and sort of stumbling clumsily as if she had been hit over the head with something. And wondered if she would be okay to walk home since she hadn't been able to say more than gibberish since they left the park, and he wasn't _fluent_ enough in gibberish to know if she had told him where she lived.

So for the moment this was the best that he could do for her. "Okay. You're off the bike and on your feet again-" He said more to himself than her since he wasn't even sure if she was listening anyways, as he dug out her groceries and handed the bag to her.

"Here's your food..." He said before digging into his inner vest pocket and pulling out a card that he and Modo and Charlie had had printed out for Vinny just in case he got lost and needed help and slipped it into her right breast pocket after making sure that it had either Charlies phone number on it or his own then sighed, and waved bye as she sort of started walking away with a zombie like expression on her face.

And he got the funny feeling that if this was how she reacted to him being aroused, he would probably kill her when they finally slept together.


	19. Chapter 19

Shara staggered over to her bed and dropped the bag of groceries that she had bought and flopped down on the bed face first and lay there mentally going over the day's events. She still wasn't sure what to think of the male-er Throttle. His name was Throttle.

And she would have to remember that just in case she saw him again.

She'd also have to apologize to him for getting his blood_ really_ pumping and for acting like an idiot because she'd been so shocked. She sighed and closed her eyes and for a second she could see herself straddling his hips again, this time without any barrier of clothing between them-

And quickly opened her eyes and tried to push those dirty little thoughts from her mind as she pushed herself upright and decided to call Charlie. Thinking that maybe her cousin could give her some advice on how to handle Throttle the next time she saw him.

She dug her cell out of her pants pocket and pressed one and waited for Charlie to pick up.

(*********************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************)

Charlie was listening to the radio while tuning a car when the phone rang. Figuring that it might be Throttle calling to tell her that he had run into some trouble and needed her to come and pick him and his bike up she sighed and wiped her greasy hands on her work overalls and walked over to the work station that she had against the far side of the room and picked up the phone. "Last Chance garage, sort of like the O.K corral only no one has died here yet, Charlie speaking. What can I do for you?"

_"That is a funny way to get someone's interest."_ Shara said cheerfully, causing Charlie to nearly collapse in shock. After what had happened with Throttle and the other two she had figured that it might be a good long while before she heard from her cousin again, so naturally hearing Shara's voice so soon was a little bit of a shock for her.

"Shara-"

_"Yeah, yeah, I know. You didn't think that I'd call so soon." _

"Well, no. But in my defense that is your usual pattern."

_"I know. I need to break that habit." _

"So what do you need? A patch job?"

_"Hell no. I need advice."_

Charlie blinked and sat down on the small chair that she kept at her work station and chewed on her lower lip. Wondering what it was that Shara needed advice about. "Advice about what?"

_"Your brown furred friend. He found me today-"_

"Shit. Really?"

_"Yeah. And you shouldn't sound so damn happy about it." _

"Oh? Whys that?"

_"Because he sort of got hot and bothered and humped me-"_

Charlie snorted and bit the inside of her cheek to keep herself from laughing hysterically. The mental images alone were funny as hell. Besides Throttle was too much of a gentleman to hump any woman. Although...if she really thought about it he had been behaving oddly lately. So maybe it wasn't such a stretch. "_Ohhhh_. Well. What exactly do you need my advice in?"

_"How do I handle him the next time I see him?"_

Charlie laughed this time. She just wasn't able to help herself. The thought of her cousin being able to handle someone as willful as Throttle was just _so_ funny. "Oh honey, you don't handle him. He's just too _willful_ and _wild_ natured. You might try steering him in a particular direction. But if you try steering him a way that he doesn't want to go, he'll just do what he wants and to hell with if you like it or not."

_"Wonderful. Your an awesome help cuz." _

"I try. Besides, did it ever occur to you that he may be reacting in some sense to your-"

_"Shut up! I don't want to hear shit like that!" _

"Why not? It's probably true. I mean you are a half breed-" Charlie said as she made a mental note to make sure that Throttle and the guys saw some of Shara's baby pictures with her mother Iria.

The martian woman that had met, fallen in love with and married her uncle back when he had been a good man. Before she had gotten sick and died. Before he had gone crazy and turned his sights on Shara.

Shara sighed softly on the other end of the line then said in an unusually bitter tone. _"Please, stop saying that. I hate being reminded of what I am."_

A short time later, Shara hung up the phone and charlie was left to herself. She knew that her cousin hated being reminded of how painful her childhood as a half human half alien had been. But at the same time, letting the guys know about her may be the only way to assure her happiness.


	20. Chapter 20

Throttle walked through the door to the garage twenty minutes after Charlie had gotten off the phone with Shara. And found his friend sitting at her work bench waiting for him. "Hey Charlie."

She turned a little bit in her seat and looked at him. "Hey big guy. You seem better. _What have you been up too?_"

Throttle paused in his tracks and looked over at her, his expression unreadable then sighed. Crap. He could tell by Charlie's tone that Shara must have called her to tattle on him for being less than stellar in his manners today. Which meant that his ears were probably going to be bleeding before Charlie was done chewing him a new one.

And on top of that she would probably make him swear never to go near Shara again.

And that just wasn't something that he was willing to agree too regardless of what she did to him. "You talked to Shara earlier." He said warily. Charlie made a soft humming sound as she nodded her head.

Throttle made an irritated sound as he wondered what Shara had told her. "Look Charlie I know that she's your friend and-"

"She's not my friend Throttle." Charlie said as she crossed her arms over her breasts as she crossed her ankles and sort of glared at him. Or at least that's what it looked like to him. And he might have been intimidated by that glare of hers if he wasn't so busy trying to figure out what Charlie meant by Shara wasn't her friend.

He needn't have strained anything trying to figure it out since she clued him in a second or so later. "She's my baby cousin. And while knowing your intentions towards her would make me very happy, I thought that you should know something that I've been keeping a secret from you and the others to protect her-" Throttle blinked behind his shades and watched as Charlie picked up some small pieces of paper that looked suspiciously like old pictures and held them out to him.

He hesitated for a second then took the pictures and started looking through them. Pausing briefly in shock when he came across the picture of a two or three year old little girl with curly shoulder length silvery blond hair and a white furred blond haired martian mouse.

A female. If the build was anything at all to go by.

He glanced at Charlie for a second, a question resting on the tip of his tongue. But he bit it back and looked back down at the photo and studied it for a second. Noting similarities between the alien and the toddler.

They had the same eyes. That bizarre mix of neon pink and lavender color. Their hair was the same pale blond though the child's hair color must have been a combination gotten from the silvery white fur and the pale blond hair of her mother.

He looked at Charlie again, noting that she was keeping her expression as blank as possible so that he wouldn't be able to read her. "This is Shara?"

"Yes."

"And the martian in this picture with her. This is her mother?" He said a silent prayer that Charlie would deny it. That she would tell him that the alien in the picture wasn't Shara's mother so that he could carry on like he had been without feeling morally obligated to go out and find the female and bring her to the garage. Where he could better protect her since the women of his species, even the half breed ones, were so goddamn _rare_ that they were coveted and handled with great care by the males of their race.

"It is."

He took a deep breath and handed the pictures back to her and asked, "How did this happen?" He asked because he was curious. To his knowledge half breeds were rare for the reason that they became deathly ill as infants and often died.

The fact that Shara, a half human half breed had survived past infancy, when the the odds had been stacked against her a million to one. Was just amazing. It was even more amazing because she just seemed so..._healthy._ Despite her unusual knack for trouble.

Charlie shrugged. "To my knowledge Iria crash landed here on earth sometime in the seventies. She lived in an old condemned building and sort of did what you and the others do. She patrolled the city and fought to save whoever she could. She ran into my uncle and instantly fell in love with him. They had wild passionate-"

"_Ew!_ Spare me the details of their sex life please..."

Charlie shrugged her shoulders again and gave him a crooked grin. "Anyways, Shara was born several months later. She was smaller than most new born babies, and kind of sickly for a few months. She had to stay in the hospital for about two months before she was allowed to go home with my uncle and her mom."

"How did your uncle explain any abnormalities in her blood?"

"I'm not totally sure. I think any abnormalities found in her blood were simply shrugged off as genetic mutations of some sort. Just like the color of her eyes and her skin and hair."

"Ah." Throttle said as understanding dawned on him. To his knowledge medical techniques hadn't been that advanced back in the seventies. So it sort of made sense that the human doctors wouldn't have known that they were looking at a half alien child's blood.

"Charlie...would you mind if I brought her here to keep an eye on her better?"

"Nah, man. I don't mind."

"Good. I'll bring her here the next time I have her." Throttle said as he leaned down and kissed the woman on the cheek before walking out of the room. He needed to do some serious thinking to figure out what he should do next.


	21. Chapter 21

Throttle was sitting in the bedroom he and his bros shared, staring out the window, three empty bottles of beer laying on the floor at his feet and his fourth beer in hand. No matter which way he looked at things, now that he knew that Shara was a half breed, he was determined to take her into _protective custody_ as soon as he could so that he could keep her from being hurt.

He didn't kid himself though, her being half alien and one of his fellow martian females, simply gave him more of an excuse to keep her_ close_ to him. But he didn't know how to go about keeping her close to him without fighting with her.

She had been raised as a human. She had a human's tendency to lash out against those that she felt were a threat to her and her way of life. She'd probably try to kill him and his bros if they took her freedom from her without striking a sort of precarious balance first.

Something that she could live with and something that they could live with.

The trouble now was finding those things and listing them.

From what little bit he knew of her already, she liked doing dangerous things. The same things that he had labeled her as a lunatic for. But now that he knew that she was half martian, those things could be explained away as her alien blood since _all_ of their race was the same way.

Her willful nature could also be explained away because of her alien blood. And it was her willful nature that bugged him the most.

Martian females weren't weak simpering Misses. Not by a long shot. They liked getting their hands dirty and taking risks just as much as the males. And that was part of the reason that there was so damn few of them.

They took far too many _unnecessary_ risks. They took on enemies that they had no chance against. And many of them _died_ far, far too young. Leaving behind a score or more of males that now had no hope of ever mating and producing offspring.

Those same males often died much sooner than they should as well.

He leaned back in his chair and braced his feet on the window sill and took a drink of his beer as the door opened and Modo came walking in. "Hey bro."

Throttle lifted his empty hand and gave the gray furred man a two fingered salute in greeting before taking another drink. Modo looked at him strangely for a second as he walked over to him and looked down at the beer bottles littering the floor around Throttle's chair and wondered what his bro was trying to sort out. Or maybe he was trying to forget something. It was sometimes hard to tell which way things went with Throttle since he didn't usually drink unless he was trying to _sort_ something out or he was trying to _forget_.

"Is everything okay bro?" Modo asked as he bent down and picked up one of the empty bottles and studied it for a second.

Throttle made a humming sound and polished off his beer and leaned down to set the bottle aside and wondered where the hell his fifth, sixth, and seventh beers had gone before he straitened his spine and tipped his head back to look at Modo who was holding one hand behind his back and trying to look innocent.

He reached out a gloved hand and wiggled his fingers at the man. "Gimme."

"Give you what?"

"Gimme my next beer."

"Beer? Your drinking beer? You? The great and noble leader are-"

Throttle took one of his boots off and threw it at the giant's head and used his tail to snatch one of the beers behind Modo's back and popped the lid off before Modo could snatch it away from him. "Dammit bro. If something's wrong you need to talk to me, not sit here alone and try to drink yourself stupid." Modo growled at him.

Throttle hummed and took a drink and waved his free hand at the man then set the bottle aside and said, "If you knew what I knew, you'd drink too." Modo's ears twitched slightly as he frowned. What did Throttle mean by 'if he knew what he knew' he'd drink too?

"Is something going on bro? Are you feeling a little stressed or something?"

Throttle snorted. The word_ stressed_ didn't even begin to cover what he was feeling at the moment. But then neither did the words; worried, troubled, and hot and bothered. Although those words were pretty close to describing what he was feeling at the moment.

"Something like that-" Throttle said after a moment or so as Modo planted himself in the floor next to Throttle and set the bottles that he'd been trying to keep from him, down. "Can I ask you a question Modo?"

"You just did."

Throttle gave him an unamused look. "I mean a different question."

Modo cocked his head and considered him for a second before saying. "Fire away."

"If you found a half martian female, you'd take her into protective custody wouldn't you? Even though she had been raised as a human and would fight you." Modo got a funny slightly panicked look on his face and grabbed one of the unopened beers and popped the lid off and downed an entire half bottle before he bothered to answer Throttle's question.

"Yes. Yes, I would."

Throttle made a 'hn'ing sound. "Even if she might try to kill you?"

"Even if she tried to kill me. You know how badly our kind needs females. Especially young healthy ones that we might be able to sire offspring with. It wouldn't matter if she's a half breed or not. She'd still be one of us-"

"And as such she needs to be protected." Throttle finished his sentence for him then took another drink of his beer as Modo asked.

"Why would you ask me a question about this? It isn't like any of us have come across any-" He stopped talking, and let his jaw drop open when Throttle gave him another unamused look and quickly pulled himself together and asked.

"Oh momma, you've found one? An honest to god half breed female? _Here_? In the city?"

"Yeah. I found her today while I was out riding."

"But...how did you know that she was a half breed?" Modo asked curiously, knowing that many half breed females didn't look like them. Many of them took after their fathers or mothers depending on which one of their parents wasn't a martian mouse.

"I knew because Charlie knows her. She even has pictures of her with her mother. They have the same coloring. The same eyes and hair." Modo had an even more shocked look on his face. Charlie? Their human, Charlie, knew the half breed? How the hell had that managed to escape their notice?

Didn't Charlie tell them everything?


	22. Chapter 22

A little while later Charlie knocked on the door, interrupting their drinking binge with a few quick words, something along the lines of, 'I want you guys to go out on the town tonight and have fun'. She left a bag of new clothes for them and a small piece of paper with an club name and address on it and gave them an hour to sober up (if they were drunk. fortunately or unfortunately depending on how one looked at things, human booze was pitifully weak and had very little effect on them unless they drank five times the normal amount) and get dressed and ready to go.

Curious to know what the woman was up too the two cornered her in the kitchen grabbing herself a soda and asked what she was up too. Charlie's answer had been short, sweet and slightly threatening at the same time.

"You guys work too hard and don't relax enough. So...just for tonight your _all_ going out. Your all going to drink and have fun and find yourselves a nice girl and dance the night away and if you come back sober, and unsmiling; I'm going to break your knee caps."

Enough said, both men thought as they went and tracked down Vinny and dragged him back to the bedroom and proceeded to get ready for their long night on the town without further question. Figuring that there had to be a reason why Charlie suddenly wanted them out of the apartment.

Vinny said something about a 'female time' to which both Modo and Throttle responded by smacking the younger man in the back of the head sharply and told him to shut up. Forty five minutes later they were dressed in the very questionable clothes that Charlie had left for them and on their way to the place mentioned on the piece of paper that Charlie had left for them.

(***********************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************)

Shara was setting up the music for the night, deciding to play some oldies and some of the newer stuff feeling that it would make a nice statement for anyone who decided to get up and dance. To dance to songs like; One more night, Lonely heart, Wild wild west, St. Elmo's fire, My girl, and a bunch of other oldies.

The other songs on her treks for tonight were by Pink, Linkin park, Sick Puppies, Dropping Daylight, Nightwish, Within Temptation, Earshot, Paramore, Shinedown, Skillet, Red, Breaking Benjamin, Matchbox 20 and several other bands. While she listened to Rock tha Spot by Bomfunk MC's and finished her task while one of her employee's opened the door and let a few people in while another worked the bar pouring drinks.

Once she was done setting up the music she sighed and leaned back in her seat as Give me the Meltdown by Rob Thomas started playing over the speakers in the downstairs part of the club as she softly sang along with the song to kill time.

_Wide awake now, and your monkey's dead-_

_Your so perfect that you never really need no body._

_Put your hands down. Your among your friends._

_You just take and take and take and take-_

_Late at night, late at night, you weep but show no better than the secrets you keep. _

_Stayin down. Just lay down here close to me, pretend that your never leaving me-_

She jumped when her cell started vibrating in her pants pocket and quickly dug it out wondering who could be texting her and smiled when she saw that the text was from Charlie. Apparently she had finally found the replacement cell phone that Shara had left for her before she had left the apartment. It had taken her cousin long enough.

She read the text and sent a quick text back then flipped her phone closed and stood up and went down stairs to work. Eagerly looking forward to seeing her cousin sometime during the night.

(****************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************)

The guys stood outside of the club that Charlie had decided that they should spend tonight at and studied the place.

It was a nifty looking three floor brick building. Two floors were used for the club and the third was a large loft apartment for whoever could afford the rent to such a place. It looked like it had been built sometime with in the past year, there was no gang graffiti on the smooth stone, nor were there any broken windows or damages to the outside of the building. The music that they could hear playing from inside wasn't heavy metal or anything that they were used too.

The music was a little bit softer, more classy. It made them _itch_ to see what the place looked like on the inside. As well as to see what kind of people went to this sort of place.

Modo tugged at the collar of his dark blue turtle neck and tried not to look like he was sweating bullets. "I think I'm intimidated by the looks of this place." He said nervously.

"Really? I'm dying to go in and see what kind of babes are in there." Vinny said cheerfully. Showing them once again that the younger man felt_ no_ shame. Throttle made an irritated sound and rubbed one hand along the nape of his neck and then sighed.

"Lets get this over with." He wanted to go back to the garage and _burn_ the shirt that charlie had picked out for him to wear. It was far too tight for him to be comfortable in it.


	23. Chapter 23

The guys walked into the club and looked around, noting the lack of rapidly flashing lights and cages with half naked girls. This was _nothing_ like the places that they usually frequented. There weren't any pool tables, no biker guys arm wrestling, no one was fist fighting in the corner.

There were small tables along the outside of the dance floor and booths against the walls out of the way, allowing people more space to move. They could see people eating and drinking, couples necking in the dimly lit booths.

There was a bar against the farthest wall and a group of people doing shots. There was a stair way leading up to the second floor where there were more booths and off to the side there were what looked like rooms.

VIP lounges?

Vinny opened his mouth and muttered something before turning to them and practically jumping up and down while he said. "Oh my god this place is awesome!"

"It's definitely something-" Modo said as two pretty girls wearing scandalously revealing clothes walked by and looked them over and giggled. Modo's ears twitched and he turned his head just enough to check out the girl's asses as they walked away before he glanced back at Throttle and tugged at his shirt collar nervously when the brown furred male gave him a funny almost, 'I expect better from you' sort of look before he wrapped his tail around his hips and started walking. While Vinny and Modo attached themselves to the next two girls walking by.

_Idiots._ Throttle thought with a shake of his head as he stopped and looked over his shoulder before he started walking again.

Wading his way through the crowd, and slowly making his way over to the bar. Charlie had said that he had to be out of the garage and have fun. She never said anything about dancing with some girl with her breasts nearly falling out of her shirt and making a fool of himself like Vinny and Modo already were.

Shara picked up the tray of drinks, and the BBQ wings with blue cheese dressing and started to weave her way through the crowd to table nine when she spotted a familiar face among the sea of people and froze in mid step for a second before the over whelming urge to scream and dive for cover welled up.

But instead of letting her fear take control she set the tray down on an table that wasn't being used and then stepped out in front of him as he cleared the crowd and crossed her arms over her chest and looked very, _very_ irritated as he stopped walking and blinked down at her with a surprised look on his face. "Shara. What-"

"I could ask you the same thing, Throttle. What are _you_ doing here?"

"Uh...C-Charlie sort of threw me and my bros out for the night."

"And you came here?" Shara asked curiously, silently swearing that she was going to kill her cousin the next time she saw her, as Throttle nodded his head. His expression somber. She should have known that her cousin was up to something earlier when she asked where she worked.

"So...what are you doing here?" Throttle asked curiously as he looked her over getting a little distracted by the little blue butterfly tattoo that was on the right side of her collar bone. Say what one would about scandalous clothing, but Shara looked good in hers. Her shirt was a black halter top that showed the curves of her breasts beautifully and a pair of short shorts with a wide black and silver leather belt around her hips.

And her legs...

He felt his blood heat up in his veins as his gaze drifted lower so that he could check out her legs. She was wearing thigh high black hose and little black heels. He swallowed past the lump suddenly forming in his throat and lifted his eyes to her face again, feeling a little bit disappointed when he noted that she wasn't wearing any make up.

Not that she needed any.

But he might have liked to see her wearing lip gloss or something. And her hair, she had the top half of her hair pulled back with several thin braids falling from her temples to frame her lovely face. And she had used some sort of comb in punk color to tint her bangs lavender purple with neon pink.

All and all she looked mouth watering to him.

Shara let him finish looking her over despite her intense need to reach out and punch him, before she finally answered. "I work here." Throttle gave her another surprised look and then looked around the club for a second then back at her with a slightly puzzled look on his face.

"Why do you work here?" He couldn't imagine that she would actually _enjoy_ catering to the whims of a bunch of drunks. God knew how dangerous that could get for a girl like her. Especially since some drunks didn't take 'no' for an answer.

Shara shrugged her shoulders. "I just do."

"It's dangerous though, isn't it."

"We haven't had any incidents in over a month." She said flippantly as she picked up the tray that she had set down a little while ago and started walking. Throttle let her take three steps away from him before he fell into step behind her, intending to follow her and keep some moron from copping a feel and stopped several feet away from her and watched as she set the drinks and food down on the table of the ones who had ordered them.

Talking and laughing with the people before she waved bye to them and started walking back, pausing for a second when she saw him blocking her way. "What?" She snapped at him. And he shrugged his shoulders and shifted slightly so that she could get by him.


	24. Chapter 24

Shara had been irritated for the past two hours and was finally getting fed up with the feeling. She glared in the direction of her ire and silently tried to will _him_ into flames. He was currently being hit on by some little skank in a really showy black dress.

He said something and the bitch laughed, the light and airy sound caused Shara to tighten her grip on the shot glass in her hand to the point it shattered causing several people, including the whore and the object of her black mood to look her way as blood welled up and dripped down her hand. One of her employees came running up with a towel and wrapped her bleeding hand in it after taking a second to pull her under a light and pick some of the shards out.

Throttle watched her with a concerned look on his face while the disease riddled witch leaned against him, pressing her breasts against one of his left arm in an effort to get him to look at her. And Shara saw red and picked up another shot glass with her uninjured hand and waited until Throttle looked at the woman before she flicked her wrist and sent the shot glass flying.

It hit the woman in the side of the face causing her to go down hard, and Throttle's eyes looked like they were about to pop right out of his head for a second. A few other people looked the same way while several others helped the woman up and asked her if she was okay.

Shara felt only the slightest bit of satisfaction to see that she was bleeding a little bit. But that was before Throttle leveled a strange, calculating look her way. Catching the slightly smug look on her face and making her long to flip him off and walk away.

She didn't understand herself.

She didn't like him. In fact men like him pissed her off. But when she had seen that tramp hanging onto him, she had gotten weirdly pissed. More so than usual. Her employee told her to go take care of her hand in the back, but instead of doing as she was told she grabbed two shot glasses and a large bottle of the strongest alcoholic drink that she could think of and walked around the bar and started upstairs, pausing only for a second to look over her shoulder at Throttle to make sure that he was following.

She wasn't sure why she bothered.

He'd been following her all night. While she worked the floor and while she had worked behind the bar. He often times got so close to her that she could feel the heat from his body. Or the slightest brush of his fur against her skin. Just why did he feel the need to get so close to her anyways?

She reached the top of the stairs before him and used a key that she carried on her to open the door to one of the VIP rooms and stepped inside and looked around. The VIP rooms in her club weren't the conventional kind.

For instance there was a king sized bed in every room, decked out in red, blue or black satin sheets that were used for people who managed to hook up. Shara didn't mind that people may come to her club to have sex as long as the girls felt safe and the guys didn't leave her with any real messes that could cause her to be visited by the fuzz.

There were glass bowls sitting on both of the bedside tables, filled with condoms. The lights were a little bit brighter than the down stairs. And there was a small room off to the side that served as a bathroom, fully stocked with a sink, toilet, shower, soap, shampoo, towels and rags just in case someone felt ashamed after doing the dirty dance and wanted to clean themselves up.

And across from the bathroom was a booth with red leather seats where people could just sit down and play cards or drink and talk with old friends.

She looked at the bed and wondered if anyone would think it strange if she pushed it out of the room. And nearly jumped out of her skin when she felt Throttle standing behind her. His voice low, "So this is a VIP lounge. It's different from what I imagined it would be..." She turned her head to look at him and he gave her a heart stoppingly shy smile. "Is there a reason there's a bed in here?"

She flushed a little bit and started stammering, not really sure how to explain the fact that there was a bed in the room without giving him funny ideas. He chuckled and brushed by her, no doubt having figured out by now that his presence bothered her a bit and stepped into the room and waited for her to come in and close the door.

Shara made a funny little almost whining sound and looked like she wanted to run away, but instead stepped into the room and closed the door and locked it, causing Throttle to raise a brow at her. Wondering what she was planning to do next when she held the shot glasses and the bottle of booze up and muttered. "Have a drink with me."

He got a curious look on his face then shrugged. If this was the only way he could get her to sit down with him and talk then he'd see what alcohol does to her. Hopefully she would say more to him when she was drunk.

"Alright-" He said as he took the shot glasses and the bottle from her before glancing down at her bloody hand. "Do you need to take a few minutes to do something about that?"

Shara shook her head no and walked over to the booth and sat down and gave him an expectant look. He studied her for a second then sighed, wondering just how many drinks it would take for her to loosen up.

(*********************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************)

Half an hour later, Throttle found out.

Shara it turned out, could hold her liqure pretty well, but once they hit the ten shot mark-

Her entire personality seemed to change completely. It was _shocking_ really. He had almost expected her to be a mean drunk, or even an obnoxious one. He hadn't however expected her to start hitting on him.

Again, it was _shocking_.

And he wasn't completely sure how to respond to her advances. Part of him wanted to exploit her shamelessly and the more honorable part of him was telling him to put her to bed and let her sleep it off. "I think letting you drink this stuff was a bad idea." He said awkwardly as he picked up the bottle and read the label.

Dear fucking god, this shit had five times the amount of alcohol as Vodka and Whiskey combined! _How the hell could anyone with a working liver or kidney drink this stuff?_ He wondered as he set the bottle back down and glanced at Shara whom had gotten quiet.

She had her arms folded on the table and her chin resting on one of them, her neon pink/lavender eyes staring at him. She had such a sad look on her face. "Is something wrong Shara?" He asked curiously, wondering why she had that look on her face.

"Do you think there's something wrong with me?" She asked very bluntly.

He gave her a slightly nervous look, not really sure what she was after yet sensing trouble if he gave her the wrong answer. "I'm not sure what you mean. You seem perfectly fine to me." He said honestly. She frowned and lifted her head a little bit and shook her head slowly. The sad look never vanishing from her face.

"That's not what I meant. What I meant was; do you think there is something wrong with me because I don't have a boyfriend or something?"

Throttle blinked and leaned back in his seat a little bit. "No. Do you want a boyfriend?"

"Strangely enough, yeah. I kind of do. But-"

"But?"

"I don't think there is anyone willing to put up with me. I mean, I ride motorcycles. I like guns and fighting. And I'm not terribly affectionate when I do have a boyfriend. I'm beginning to think that I'm frigid or something. There's just no heat, or chemistry."

"Then you haven't met the right guy." Throttle said as he propped his elbow on the table and rested his chin on the heel of his hand. Shara perked up a little bit, a hopeful expression on her pretty face and Throttle began to wonder just how desperate she must be feeling to have such a look on her face.

"How can you be sure?"

"It's fairly simple. Come here and I'll show you what chemistry can do to you."


	25. Chapter 25

He shouldn't be doing this. Was the thought that crossed his mind for a brief moment as Shara all but crawled into his lap and sat there waiting for him to do something. Gods but she was far, far too trusting when she was drunk.

He'd have to remember that for future reference if they ended up drinking together again.

He rested his hands lightly on her hips and leaned his head down a little bit and ghosted his lips across the curve of her cheek. Gauging her reaction as she tipped her head back a little bit more and allowed him better access to her lips.

He intended to go slow. To give her a nice, gentle, _proper_ kiss. But for some reason that he didn't really know how to explain, the second his lips made contact with hers he found himself giving into the same desire that he had felt earlier that day when she had been touching him.

His mind went blank and instinct took over and all he could think of was how badly he wanted to crawl inside of her.

The feeling was so much more intense than the feelings he had held for Carbine.

Maybe it was the fact that he hadn't so much as looked at another woman in over five years. Or maybe it was because he finally realized that he wanted to settle down with a nice girl. Or maybe it was none of those things and everything he was doing was simply because he had finally drank too much.

He didn't know. All he knew was that she was vulnerable at the moment, and he _liked_ her. He liked her fire, her warmth, her stubbornness, her temper. And her mouth was so soft...

He licked along her bottom lip as he lifted one hand and wrapped his fingers around her throat, using his thumb to stroke the soft skin over her jugular. She jerked a little bit and parted her lips allowing him to slip his tongue inside of her mouth so that he could steal her breath.

He could feel her heart beating faster, the soft frantic thudding of her heart beat under his fingers firing his blood as he toppled them both over onto the seat and partially covered her body with his own.

She brought her hands up and put them against his chest and for a moment he pulled back a little bit, thinking that she wanted him to stop. But then she did the most amazing thing, she wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him back down muttering against his lips about liking the way he kissed. He made a soft growling sound and attacked her mouth, giving her a searing kiss that left her shaken and flushed and...

He jerked back a little bit, his scarlet eyes wide, his expression shocked. He could smell her.

He could smell the honey like scent of her arousal. His heart stuttered in his chest and he stared down at her for a second, not really _knowing_ what he should do now. Should he keep going and see how far she would let him push her? Or should he stop and leave her alone?

"Shara...I can smell you." He said as he gently caressed her cheek with one of his hands. She made a small almost inaudible sound in the back of her throat and leaned her cheek into his touch as much as she could before he slipped his hand into her hair. His words didn't really seem to pierce the fog in her mind until he started to move back to let her up.

"Don't stop." Shara begged as she came up a little bit and grabbed his shoulders and tried to pull him back down. Throttle shook his head slowly and reached up to grasp her wrists and yelped when she pulled him off balance and back down on top of her and wrapped her legs around his waist.

"Jesus!" What the hell was she doing? She was drunk and vulnerable and aroused- And if this kept up he was going to take advantage of her despite the fact that he knew he shouldn't.

"Shara, you need to let me up."

"I don't want too."

"You should do it anyways."

"Why? You haven't shown me what chemistry does to a person yet."

Throttle opened his mouth to tell her that_ that_ was the biggest load of crap he'd ever heard. He had too shown her!

He'd nearly kissed her until his lungs had almost stopped working! And a person didn't do shit like that unless there was chemistry behind the action. "I have too." He finally said as he glared at her for a second. She gave him an amused look and shook her head.

"Nuh-uh. All you did was show me how to kiss someone well. I can do that at any time. I want to know what true chemistry does to a person. You said that you'd show me." He gaped at her as soon as he realized what she was hinting at.

She wanted him to sleep with her! He wasn't sure if he wanted to laugh or cry at this point. Here he was trying to be a total gentlman, and keep his hands and other body parts to himself, and she was expecting him to... _Oh dear god._

He made a strangled sound and buried his face against her shoulder and inhaled her scent. He could still smell her. He curled his fingers against the leather seat and fought for control. He wanted to do the right thing here.

He wanted to take his time and get to know her. But then again, this could be used to form a deeper bond with her. And he did need to take her into protective custody.

And what better way to do that than make her his girl?

He sighed and decided to give in. There was nothing wrong with this. Not as long as she wanted it. But he would have to go slow and make sure that he stopped if she changed her mind. "Alright. I'll show you what you want. But on two conditions-"

"Conditions?" She had such an adorably puzzled look on her face.

"Yes. Conditions. 1) You have to be sober enough to really want this. And 2) You have to agree to be my girl. Do you understand and agree to both?"

"Yes." She said without hesitation and he gave her a quick kiss on the lips and then moved back a little bit and pulled her up so that he could get her over to the bed.


	26. Chapter 26

_Shara couldn't ever recall a time she had been as nervous as she was when Throttle undressed her. He didn't feel any need to rush and took his time kissing and running his hands along her skin, exploring the soft dips and curves of her body._

_He loved her tattoos. He loved how beautiful and feminine they were, and how the colors blended so prettily with her skin. He'd even said so before he had kissed all three of them before he had wrapped his arms around her trembling body and pulled her close to him and tangled his fingers in her hair and kissed her until she felt weak and breathless before he let her go and told her to get comfortable on the bed._

_She moved around the bed and pulled the covers back and slipped under them and made herself comfortable while Throttle stripped off his shirt, and his boots. He made a point to keep his pants on, just in case she changed her mind and glanced at her._

_She looked embarrassed. Her face was a pretty vivid pink and she wasn't looking at him. He knew that she was nervous, and though he wanted to ask why, the question just didn't seem to want to leave his lips._

_He crawled onto the bed and made his way over to her and grasped the sheets and gently pulled them back, ignoring her gasp as he growled, "No hiding." Before he bit down on the sensitive spot where her neck and shoulder met, making her cry out in shock as she lifted her hands and grabbed his shoulders, digging her sharp little finger nails into his skin through his fur._

_He groaned and licked the spot to sooth the sting left by his teeth and nuzzled the under side of her jaw so that she would tip her head back, giving him better access to her lips so that he could kiss her while he settled himself on top of her._

_He made sure to stay leveled up over her on his elbows to keep from crushing her and shifted slightly so that he could run one hand along her leg, slipping it along the inside of her thigh so that he could lightly brush up against her core._

_She make a keening sound in the back of her throat and twitched, her breathing hitched and she arched her back slightly, needing more..._

(***********************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************)

By the time they got around to the main event, Shara felt dangerously close to falling apart. It was weird. And the strange pressure that Throttle had built in her was making her cry.

She _needed_ him inside of her so badly that it overwhelmed common sense as he slowly pushed his throbbing member inside of her inch by torturous inch. Pausing briefly from time to time to ask her if he was hurting her or if she was still with him.

She nodded her head and bit her lower lip to keep from crying when he breached her maidenhead and froze, his eyes flickering to her face as his tail twitched a little bit at the tip as his breath left his lungs in a soft hiss that did nothing to relieve the odd pressure forming in the center of her chest.

He framed her face in his hands and leaned down to touch his forehead to hers and stared at her intently, his expression almost angry, yet curious and _amazed_ at the same time. "Why didn't you tell me that you were a virgin?"

She looked at him through wide teary eyes, her body protesting the invasion with a slightly stinging/burning sensation that was a bit uncomfortable. "I-I thought you knew." She said lamely, being totally honest with him.

If she hadn't been a virgin she wouldn't have been so_ mortified_ by his reaction to her innocent touches earlier when she'd had him on his back, in the park. He made a small sound and experimentally rocked his hips to see if her body was ready yet to completely accept him. Slowly withdrawing from her a little bit before pushing back inside, stroking her deeper.

She gasped in shock at the velvety feel of his cock pushing deeper inside of her. Her body feeling abnormally hot as her body clenched around him. "Am I still hurting you?" He asked, concern coloring his tone. She shook her head again and gasped as he slipped his tail around her hips and lifted her up a little bit at an angle and pushed himself deeper.

"God your tight." He hissed as he slipped his arms around her and rolled them so that she was on top of him, her legs straddling his hips like she had before and he had to fight down the intense urge to thrust his hips up helplessly and push himself deeper into her slick heat.

"What are you-"

"I want you to set the pace." He said in a husky tone as he brushed her long hair back from her face and kissed her gently. He wanted her to set the pace because he was in a bad way here. Years of self imposed celibacy had worn him down and his control, was holding on by a small _fraying_ sliver of thread. If she let him keep control over their love making, he'd surly end up hurting her.

"I don't know what to-"

"Just move. Find what feels nice for you and set a steady pace. I want you to get something out of this before I do." He said gently as he helped her sit up a little bit before he dropped his hands back to his sides and waited patiently for her to move.

She had the most adorable nervous look on her face as she chewed her bottom lip for a second and put her hands on his abdomen and slowly raised herself up a little bit then lowered herself. The slight movement forcing a tortured moan from his throat as he fisted his fingers in the sheets to keep himself from grabbing her.

She shuddered and moved again, trying to focus on something aside from how nervous and vulnerable she felt in this position and after a few more experimental movements she set and nice slow pace that had Throttle hissing and groaning in between kisses.

There was just something empowering about reducing such a strong man to a panting, writhing mess of_ need_ that brought out her evil side.

She teased him with kisses that left him breathless. Ran her hands over the hard muscles of his body. She rubbed herself against him like a kitten, eager for his attention and anything else he had in mind. She nipped at his shoulders and neck and rocked herself against him so _agonizingly_ slowly that he had to keep reminding himself that this was her first time having sex.

That_ he_ was her first. And he wanted her to enjoy herself enough to _want_ to do this with him again.

He held himself back for as long as he could, letting her have her way for as long as he could stand too and finally when he felt like he couldn't take any more he came up off of the bed and wrapped his arms around her and toppled her back onto her back on the mattress and pinned her under him and crushed her lips under his own as he took control back from her.

She seemed to get more enjoyment from torturing him than riding him anyways. He'd have to fix that. _Now._

He swallowed her breathless little cries of pleasure as he drove himself into her over and over again. She came much quicker than he expected she would. Stunning him a little bit when he thrust into her the forth time and was nearly bucked off as she bowed her back up off of the bed screaming as she came her body clenching and squeezing around him, bringing him dangerously close to his end.


	27. Chapter 27

Throttle curled his body around Shara, lightly running his finger tips along the skin of her side. Skimming his fingers up over her naked shoulder then down her arm to her hand where he laced their fingers together.

After they had made love the first time, both of them had become more confident that they could please each other and had made love two more times before Shara had passed out from the combination of too much alcohol, and exhaustion.

That had been over an hour ago, and though he would have liked to go a few more times, he decided to stop and had curled up on the bed behind her to hold her for a while before he left. He _hated_ the fact that he had to leave and would have much preferred to stay and fix her breakfast or something once she woke up, but knew that he couldn't.

He kissed her shoulder and her nape then carefully extracted himself from her and moved back enough to pull the sheets up over her, then got off of the bed and grabbed his pants. It was four in the morning by his calculation and the club would be open for a few more hours. He fastened his jeans then glanced at her for a second.

God she was so _beautiful_.

So much so that he almost took his pants back off and crawled back into bed with her.

It took all of his will power to push the thought of returning to her side on the bed from his mind then reached down and picked up his shirt and started to put it on, but stopped and looked back at the bed and sighed before walking over to Shara's side of the bed. And gently pulled the covers back a bit then carefully dressed her in his shirt and then covered her back up. And used one hand to brush her hair back from her face lovingly then grabbed his boots and pulled them on and tied them.

Once that was done he glanced at the sleeping form of his lover again and wondered if anyone would think it odd if he left to go get flowers or something for her so that he could leave her with a small display of his blossoming affections before he left completely.

After a short time to think on it he decided to go do that and grabbed her shorts up off of the floor and dug out the key that he had seen her use to unlock the door earlier and pocketed it so that he could lock the door behind him when he left.

Because there was _no_ fucking chance that he was going to leave Shay in such a vulnerable state and_ not_ lock the door to keep others out. She had given herself to him, and that meant that she was his now.

Her body, her heart, her spirited nature, her warmth and soul-

They were all his now, and he planned to keep them safe and treat them as _gently_ as his over protective nature would allow.

He walked back over to the bed and leaned down and kissed her cheek then straitened his spine and walked around the bed and headed towards the door and opened it, turning the lock as he slipped out of the small opening and gently closed the door behind him.

He wasn't gone long. Thirty five minutes at the most due to the fact that he managed to get into a store that was down the street about a half a mile from the club. He walked in, grabbed some flowers-

Cosmo's, lilies, snap dragons, and baby's breath. The colors ranging from milky white to purple to pale pink. He felt that these flowers would work well as a gift because they were nearly as beautiful as Shara herself.

He was on his way to the front to pay for them when he noticed a small display of jewelry and paused in mid step to look the display over. Something about it simply seemed to pull his attention. He walked around the small display and noted that it mostly consisted of earrings and necklaces. Many or which were beautifully crafted lockets made of silver and opalescent white mother of pearl.

He walked around the display twice before stopping, his eyes on the piece that had caught his attention.

It was a mother of pearl and diamond chip locket with the words, My Girl, written in sterling silver across the smooth white of the mother of pearl. He grabbed the little box, figuring that even though it was a little soon to be getting Shara jewelry, the locket would sort of serve as a reminder of the promise that she had made to him.

He payed for them then carefully wrapped the flowers and the little velvet box so that they wouldn't get damaged or fall off of his bike then walked back out of the store and made his way back to the club and walked back in, almost bumping into Vinny who was doing the 'bunny hop' with several drunk women while wearing some poor woman's panties on his head.

Throttle shook his head and weaved his way through the crowd with the flowers and box in hand and made his way back up to the room and unlocked the door and slipped back inside and closed the door behind him.


	28. Chapter 28

Throttle spent the rest of the night, up until it was time to leave the club, laying on the bed holding Shara and letting his mind drift from one thing to another up until the early morning hours when the music was turned down and someone knocked on the door and said that it was time to leave.

Throttle got up and walked over to the door and opened it to ask if it would be okay to leave Shara in the room until she woke up since he didn't know where she lived. The woman that had knocked and told him that it was time to leave was, luckily, one of Shara's co workers and once she knew that Shara was the person that he was asking to let stay in the room to sleep a while longer, the woman smiled at him and gave him a wink and said that it was fine if she stayed in the room.

The people working in the club would take care of Shara for him since she was a local. Throttle was tempted to ask what the woman meant, but she walked off before he could which gave him enough time to slip back into the room and give Shara one last kiss before he had to go find his bros and leave the club for good.

He laid out the flowers and the small velvet box with the locket in it on the table, next to the bed, on Shara's side and then kissed her and left the room with his heart aching in his chest.

(***********************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************)

Shara slept until well after two in the afternoon before she finally woke up in one of the beds in one of the VIP lounges, tangled in the bed sheets, wearing nothing but a button up dark green cotton shirt that was much too big to belong to her.

She moaned softly and stretched her arms over her head and arched her back up off of the bed a little bit before settling herself back down on the bed and looked around the room for any signs of something that might clue her into what she had done last night. Aside from running into Throttle and drinking, her memory was an almost total blank.

Her body was sore the muscles in her legs and lower back protesting a little bit each time she moved. It wasn't exactly a painful feeling, just something similar to what she felt when she went for a long jog. Her limbs just felt heavier and less coordinated than they should have felt.

There was a slight twinge of discomfort between her legs. Again, it wasn't a painful feeling. Though it was certainly a puzzling one at first.

At least until she noticed the bouquet of flowers and the little velvet box sitting on the table right beside the bed. She frowned and looked at the two blankly for a second as realization seeped into her foggy mind.

She'd slept with someone.

She jerked herself upright on the bed, her eyes wide._ Oh shit._ She was starting to feel sort of panicked. And for good reason.

She'd given herself to someone. _Oh shit._

She'd given her innocence to someone and at the moment she couldn't even recall who it had been. _Oh shit-_ It hadn't have been a human male had it? She didn't normally find them very attractive. They were too _sneaky_, too _conniving_, and too _arrogant_. They always looked at her like an object. And the way some of them spoke to her was horrid.

They spoke to her like she should worship them. Like she should feel grateful to them for the very air that she breathed or the food that she ate. Hell, she had even run across a few who had attacked her because they felt that as a woman she owed them_ favors_.

Like she wouldn't mind at all if they used her body then cast her aside. They'd all been fools.

They all _were_ fools.

She wouldn't have given herself to one of them. She refused to acknowledge the possibility that she had drank enough to even consider something like that. She reached out and picked up the box, wondering what kind of guy had a one night stand with a girl then left her flowers and a-

She opened the box and blinked down at the silver, mother of pearl and diamond locket necklace with the words My Girl on it. _My girl?_ She thought stupidly. Wondering if this was some weird way for whoever she had slept with to show that he was possessive of her.

There was something vaguely irritating and sweet about the gifts. And the words on the locket felt familiar in a small way since she could partially recall someone with saying, _"You have to agree to be my girl."_

"I have to agree..." Had she agreed to be someone's girl? She wondered as an image of Throttle leaning over her, his scarlet eyes showing over the rim of his shades, rose up in her mind. She blushed from the roots of her hair to the very tips of her toes.

_Oh dear god-_

Had she slept with Throttle? Had she agreed to be his girl? Because if she had...he'd never leave her alone.

(*********************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************)

Throttle had been sitting at the kitchen table drinking one beer after another since he had got out of bed an hour ago. And Charlie was finally starting to run out of beers. "Throttle?" He turned his head to look at her, the long neck that he was currently working on poised half way to his mouth.

"Yeah Charlie?"

"Is there a reason why your doing your damnedest to get drunk so early in the day?"

"I'm not trying to get drunk. I'm killing time."

"Killing time till what?" Charlie asked curiously. Throttle finished off the beer in his hand and set the bottle aside as he swallowed what was in his mouth and said cryptically.

"Till the shit hits the fan." By his calculation the main event should happen in another thirty minutes or so since he figured it should take at least that long for Shara to find his gifts, freak out, shower in an effort to get rid of his scent, then come looking for him.


End file.
